Seriously, however, there is nothing wrong with not being Jewish. So, if they don’t have access to information about Judaism, they aren’t being harmed…
**
**
Nope. No third option.
**
What happens? Bolts from the blue aren’t going to streak down out of the sky and strike me if I eat a cheeseburger. What happens is simply that I am punished for my sins (either in this life or afterwards) and am rewarded for my good deeds.
Becuase if we’re going to put our efforts into doing something about the solution, I think that trying to bring them closer is the better choice. In addition, the vast majority of the non-observant Jews today are not non-observant because of active rebellion, but because their parents weren’t observant and that’s the way they were raised. They are not “sinning” in the conventional sense because they don’t know any better. It is definitely better for us, as a community, to try to bring them closer to observance than to write off the lot of them and push them out the door.
Not that I’m aware of. Many of Judaism’s greatest figures were converts or descended from them.
Yes, there is punishment in the afterlife. If he knows better than to eat shellfish (for example) and does so, then yes, he is punished for it. Of course, repentence is always an option in Judaism.
In addition, just because one does a sin doesn’t mean that he languishes in hell forever. He’s punished for the sins he does as he deserves and is then rewarded for all the good deeds he did.
If a Jewish person were to claim Jesus as their savior (ie, become a Christian of some stripe), but never officially converted and still observed all of the 613 commandments faithfully would he be sinning?
I suppose my question boils down to do the 613 commandments that a Jew must adhere to disallow the belief in Jesus as savior?
“So, if they don’t have access to
information about Judaism, they aren’t being harmed…”
Well the point is that there are people out there who would presumably be capable of benefiting from converting to strict Judaism but don’t because they simply don’t know.
The larger point applies to virtually all theistic religions. While they may admit that a virtuous non-believer is rewarded in some fashion they invariably believe that the virtuous believer of their own religion is even better off. Which implies an unfairness on the part of God because the people not born in the chosen religion are at a disadvantage. If one particular religion is the best religion then IMO a just God should make sure that its teachings are equally accessible to all people.
“Becuase if we’re going to put our efforts into doing something about the solution, I think that trying to
bring them closer is the better choice.”
Well this is true if there is a good chance of them becoming strictly observant again. But if there is little or no chance of this it becomes a choice between being sinning Jews or non-sinning non-Jews, and it would seem that conversion is better for them.
In any case you like you said Jews can’t sinlessly convert anyway so this is all hypothetical. And the point about “tinuk shenishbah” also answers the point.
I’ve read that one reason that Judaism doesn’t seek out converts is because that would imply that Judaism is the only way to God, which is not necessarily true. Both Jews and Gentiles are free to approach God. I refrain from using the word “salvation” because that concept is a bit too Christian. In Judaism, one is held accountable for their own sins, and accountable for correcting them as well. If one sins against another person, one must make restitution with that person. If one sins against God, that person must make restitution with God. The 7 laws of the Noahide and the 613 mitvos are guidlines of this process.
Neurotik, in order for one to become a mainstream Christian, they would have to acknowledge the deity of Jesus. I’m guessing this is pretty blasphemous and breaks all kinds of commandments. There is no “savior” in Judaism, as there is no original sin and no vicarious atonement.
As for spreading the knowlege of the Torah to everyone, isn’t that for the Messiah to do? Bring all the Jews back to Israel, peace on earth, and then everyone knows the Torah. I’m sure that is over-simplified, but isn’t that the general gist of it?
There seems to be some confusion about why nonobservant Jews don’t simply convert to another religion to relieve themselves of the obligation of following all 613 commandments.
This is simply not the way it works. If your mother was Jewish, you converted to Judaism, or you were present at Sinai when the Torah was given, you’re Jewish and there is nothing you can do about that. We do not recognize conversions to other religions.
It is like asking, whether someone who wants to commit adultry could simply first convert to Atheism, decide they believe in a relative morality that allows adultry, and do what desire. The answer is that they can, but that that won’t change the fact that there is a God and that there is an Absolute Morality and that adultry is immoral.
We are supposed to passively spread the knowlege Torah by observing the mitzvos and setting an example. If we all do this well, this will bring about the coming of the Messianic Age.
In fact, without actively trying, we have indirectly caused billions of Christians and Muslims to read a book that was only known to us.
Simple rules of moral conduct such as “don’t kill” and “don’t steal” that were not commonly held are now considered intuitively obvious and are universally recognized (though not always observed).
Belief in Jesus as the Saviour and Messiah (in the Christian sense) is a no-no. One of the 613 commandments is to believe in God. This belief in God is not a belief in a Trinity. Worshipping Jesus as God (or a part thereof) is a sin (for a Jew).
See Chaim’s answer to Jojo’s post earlier in this thread. He asked if a gentile who keeps the seven commandments that apply to him is treated “exactly the same” by God as a Jew who keeps his commandment. Chaim said yes. There is no loss for the gentile who does not convert.
Mhand,
Zev already explained the bit about Jews not being allowed to convert. The discussion after that was about his assertion that even if this was allowed it would still be undesirable to discourage non-observant Jews to do so.(which I still disagree with him about).
“We are supposed to passively spread the knowlege Torah by observing the mitzvos and setting an
example. If we all do this well, this will bring about the coming of the Messianic Age.”
OK. This seems to be saying that Orthodox Jews are in fact spreading the word as best as they can, but indirectly in a supernatural way. While I obviously don’t accept this assertion, it seems quite internally consistent with the rest of Judaism.
This puts the onus firmly back on God. Why, this incredibly roundabout way of revealing the Torah? Isn’t he capable of revealing the Torah directly on his own and then leaving people the choice to follow it or not? And why does he need one set of people to follow the Torah for a certain amount of time before he sends in the Messiah. Is he constrained in some fashion ?
“Simple rules of moral conduct such as “don’t kill” and “don’t steal” that were not commonly held are now
considered intuitively obvious and are universally recognized (though not always observed).”
I have to disagree here. Such principles have been formalised in many cultures and religions which have had little contact with Judaism. For instance the doctrine of ahimsa(non-violence) has been around in India for several thousand years and is even more far-reaching than in the 3 Abrahamic religions because it applies to animals as well. It’s influenced Jainism,Buddhism and Hinduism.
And at an intuitive even the most violent cultures have some intuitive notion of not stealing and not killing. This intuition is probably a result of evolutionary biology than anything cultural though it is culture and religion which formalizes such notions and tries to apply them universally.
Zev,
I thought the whole point of the music analogy was that while God might treat both the same the observant Jew gets a lot more benefit out of that equal treatement. So a Gentile who is capable of following the Torah would indeed benefit from conversion.
The music analogy was Chaim’s, not mine, so you’ll have to speak to him about that.
As for your question, a gentile who is capable of keeping the mitzvos and who has a desire to certainly would benefit from it. However, that decision has to be reached by the potential convert him/herself, without any undue outside influence or pressure. A conversion under pressure would probably not be 100% sincere and the person might decide to stop observing the mitzvos once the pressure disappears. And that, as I’ve said earlier, is something that should be avoided.
I’d like to join this thread to ask about the particular vitriol that seems to be reserved for those born Jewish who convert (particularly to Christianity since that’s where my vicarious experience lies). I can understand that there might be cultural and historical reasons behind this reaction, but I am wondering about it from a halachic point of view - is there any difference (in severity) between the sin of worshiping another god and (say) eating a cheeseburger? The Catholic Church has (had??) its system of Mortal and Venial Sins - does Orthodox Judaisim have anything similar?
Well, what I meant was, many people who recognize the antiquity of the written Bible are much more skeptical about the oral tradition (Talmud and Midrash) and are likely to think of those stories as self-serving “excuses” made up by later Rabbis. I don’t believe that, but I understand that someone asking a question about the religion might be less satisfied by a Midrashic answer than by a Biblical one.
Not really, if you think about it. If you were to make that discovery and adopt Judaism, then your children would automatically be born into it…as the children of Abraham are. The analogy between a non-Jew’s access and a Jew’s access is not an accurate one. The more accurate analogy is between the non-Jew and Abraham himself That initial generation’s discovery paves the way for all of the discoverer’s descendants…the discoverer in our family tree just happened to be thousands of years ago, is all.
And, due to the existence of the entire Jewish nation, the discovery is much easier for modern non-Jews than it was for Abraham.
Jojo:
You seem to have gotten the point, but the following statement of yours:
Is not true. Abraham’s discovery of G-d had nothing to do with coincidence of time and place (he didn’t live in Israel/Canaan at the time, if that’s what you were thinking, he lived in Babylonia and later moved to Cnaan upon G-d’s command), it had to do with deep introspection and analysis of the efficacy (or lack thereof) of idol-worship and of keen observation of aspects of nature that could not be adequately explained by the prevailing philosophies of his time.
DrDeth:
The problem was regarding Jews whose mother wasn’t Jewish and who never underwent a proper conversion ceremony. There is no form of Judaism that does not recognize converts as full-fledged Jews.
Zev,
Once again, it’s not so much “pressure” so much as information ie. making sure that the tenets of the Jewish religion and the reasons why you believe they are valid are widely known all over the world so that people who might benefit from conversion don’t forego that benefit because of ignorance.
Anyway I guess that Mhand’s point that Jews who follow the Torah are in fact spreading the message indirectly(in some presumably supernatural manner) partly answers that point.
A few points that need emphasis from a non-Orthodox Jewish perspective.
We do not consider ourselves as not knowing any better. We are less likely to be Torah literalists. To us our religion is an important ethical guideline, a source of spirituality guided by ritual, and a sense of cutural heritage and of extended family, rather the God-given set of rules. We do not accept any premise that characterizes us as de facto less religious because we have interpretated the Torah and compliance to Torah by different standards than has Eastern European Orthodoxy. (That said, many of us modern liberal Jews do place our religion in a less prominent place than do the Orthodox, and some use their Reform status to justify being Rosh HaShanah/Yom Kippur Jews.)
I’d also like to emphasize that punishment for sin and reward for not sinning in an afterlife (Olam Ha-Ba)is not a major focus in Jewish thought. The Torah doesn’t mention it. We are not inspired to do right out of fear of future punishment; we do right … because it is right. Whether inspired by modern liberal standards of “ethical guides”, or by Orthodox standards of “because God said so”. The emphasis on afterlife is Christian, Islamic, and Egyptian long before them, not Jewish.
There is certainly a difference between worshipping a golden calf and eating a cheeseburger.
There are different degrees of sin. Some “sins” may be committed under certain circumstances. For example, if someone holds a gun to a Jew’s head and says “eat this cheeseburger or I’ll blow your brains out,” he is not only permitted, but required to eat it.
However, idolatry is one of the three sins for which a person is required to martyr himself rather than transgress. Therefore, converting to Christianity (or any other religion) is certainly far worse than eating a cheeseburger.
Chaim,
“That initial generation’s discovery paves the way for all of the discoverer’s
descendants”
That was kind of my point. I guess it’s a matter of opinion whether this kind of inheritance is fair or not.
For instance in secular terms someone born in a rich family generally has a lot more advantages than other people (at least economically). While this is accepted to an extent, you often have policies like an inheritance tax or subsidies for the education of the kids of the poor to counteract it.
Anyway a related question: Someone like Mohammed made the same discovery as Abraham but instead of becoming a Jew he was apparently given an entire new revelation and started his own religion. How do Jews view this revelation? Do they think it was a false revelation? If so why did he get a false revelation when he considered himself a successor of Abraham and espoused pretty similar ideas?
Not necessarily in a supernatural manner. Jews are supposed to act “as a light unto the nations” (Isaiah 42:6). Presumably people will see how we conduct ourselves and want to be like us.
True, there are some Jews (of all stripes and denominations) who don’t conduct themselves as such, but, on the whole, I’d like to believe we’re doing a pretty decent job.
Chaim and Zev, thank you for your input in this thread. It is most informative, and it increases my (already high) regard for you both. Thank you again.
Not to hijack this thread or show disrespect (see above) and certainly not to witness, but I feel obliged to bring in what seems to me to be an important distinction of Christian (as opposed to gentile) belief.
The answer “yes” is Chaim’s answer to Jojo. Forgive me if I missed it in subsequent posts (and feel free to point it out), but this doesn’t address the basic tenet of Christianity, which is faith in Jesus as savior. The following of commandments is a logical extension of that faith, not a precurser. And it should be the sincere desire of a Christian to follow God’s laws in order to be obedient and please God, as Paul points out in Romans. But absent of that faith, all the good works and commandments will not save someone from damnation, for one sin is sufficient to separate us from God.
While works are important to the Christian, their importance is derived from their being a testament to the Christian’s faith. And while it is true that a lifetime of Christian service is ultimately more beneficial to the world and more spiritually healthy to the individual than a dissolute life ending in a (sincere) “deathbed conversion”, Christians believe that such a conversion is nonetheless honored at God’s judgment.
Again, if I’ve hijacked or misinterpreted this thread, my apologies. That was not my intent.
