Re: Re: Associations

[The Dorch <TheDorch...>]

>What if 15% of mashgichim (supervisors of kashrus standards) 
>
>one day decided that this "gantse megillah" (whole story) about 
>
>separating meat and milk was "childish," and sought alternatives - 
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>each to his/her own tastes?
>
>
>
>One decides it's okay to mix meat and milk only on Mondays and Thursdays.
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>
>
>Another decides that mixing meat and milk is okay *anytime, as long as it
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>is
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>"spritually uplifting" - for instance, as long as you make a bracha
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>(blessing) over it.

This happens all the time, of course. One decides it's halakha to have a
special phone doctors can answer on shabbos. Another that there are certain
technologies that are self-enacting and can be used to operate _any_ machine
on shabbos. Some decide "traditional" Jewish dress must mimic that of
nineteenth-century Eastern European Jews. Some wear peyos, some don't.
Interpretation (and debate over interpretation) of law in theory and practise
isn't just a Jewish tradition. It's been a necessity since the destruction of
the Second Temple. We have no pope, baruch hashem, although if we had to have
one I suppose Alex would want to run. And that would be his decision. I don't
even vote in presidential elections, it's against my religion. 

Even the great rabbis who codified the Talmud didn't agree with each other.
They agreed to disagree. Hence the diversity of gemarra.

The Jewish liturgy differs around the world. When I was in Morocco I couldn't
even say the shema in synch with the Sephardim in Marrakesh, the tunes were so
different. Everything was different. The tune for the mourner's kaddish was
different. Incidentally, the prayer we know as the mourner's kaddish was still
disputed as to its efficacy as a prayer for the dead as late as the 16th
century: "If the son keeps a conviction given him by his father, that is worth
more than the recitation of the Kaddish." -- Abraham Hurwitz. In the 12th c in
Barcelona, Abraham ben Hiyya said, "Those who assume that the actions and
prayers of their sons will benefit them after death are busy with vain hopes.
All good authorities hold this opinion."

Praying for the dead at all was in dispute as having any value all through the
middle and late middle ages. This is a drastic example to illustrate the fact
that ways of being a Jew have been and continue to be extremely varied. And as
many ways as there are to be a Jew, there are to pray, to sing -- orthodoxy
and expert opinion notwithstanding. 

The Sephardim I prayed with in Marrakesh were Lubovitchers, by the way. So
there's even more than one way to be Lubovitch. Knowing people in general, and
Jews in particular, I'd say there's as many ways to be a Jew as there are
Jews. 

The historical fact is that the liturgy has changed and aspects of it have
always been in dispute. People act on the advice of persuasive argument. But
different arguments are persuasive for different people in different
historical contexts. This isn't wrong. Meaning has fluidity. The Torah remains
the same (although I hear the Ethiopian one contains some variations!). But
interpretations of it differ crazily, and always have. What has meaning within
a community is what's important. And clearly there are communities for whom it
makes sense to alter melodies of prayers -- just as for some communities of
extremely observant Jews -- say in 12th-century Spain -- it once made sense to
say that praying for the dead was a vain activity. Or just as for some
communities in Eastern Europe it made sense to arrange marriages. 

Some communities even live by the dictum: "Rules were made to be broken."

jeff dorchen
SHLOINKE -- a heterdox klez endeavor