Re: because of mixed dancing

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

Though I don't seriously dispute, in particular, the issue of the wedding 
hall (and certainly don't take seriously the rabbi's foolish speculation), 
it bears iterating (and reiterating) that we know almost *nothing*--at 
least, nothing on the level of profoundest truth--"beyond a shadow of a 
doubt"--and any "awareness" to the contrary is chimerical.

--Robert Cohen



>Fortunately, we in the real world have the awareness
>to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the reason for
>the wedding hall collapse was due to structural
>failure.  Any attempt to expand the "reasoning" beyond
>that is foolish and self-serving.
>
>
>--- Robert Cohen <rlcm17 (at) hotmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > Though I, too, winced at the foolish and rather
> > obnoxious statement
> > regarding the supposed cause of the wedding hall
> > disaster, I must humbly
> > respond to sister Lori's post here.  For the fact is
> > that a cosmology of
> > "cause and effect"--or, as it is usually referred
> > to, reward and
> > punishment--is very much a part--a basic part--of
> > normative traditional
> > Judaism.  (Read the second paragraph--after the
> > "V'auhavtau"
> > paragraph--following the Shema.)  Obviously each of
> > us believes what (s)he
> > believes (or tries/struggles to), and this belief in
> > particular is very hard
> > for many of us Baby Boomers to subscribe to.  But to
> > simply dismiss it as
> > Lori does is, I think, highly inappropriate in a
> > Jewish context.
> >
> > That being said, I certainly share Rabbi Lau's
> > belief--he seems, btw, to be
> > a rather good-hearted man--that expressing this
> > speculation (that the
> > disaster resulted from mixed dancing at the wedding)
> > was inappropriate and
> > wrong--and I would add, even thinking it, in a
> > sense, is wrong.  Because:
> >
> > 1) A secondary but important reason (for not saying
> > it) is that his words
> > caused pain, and one's words should carefully be
> > chosen to comfort mourners,
> > not increase their pain.  This may have been Rabbi
> > Lau's rationale, though
> > obviously I don't know that.
> >
> > 2) An even more profound reason, I believe, is that
> > although Judaism may,
> > and indeed (however problematically for some of us)
> > does believe in reward
> > and punishment, the way in which that plays out in
> > this world (and/or the
> > next?) is by definition in G*d's hands, and utterly
> > beyond our
> > understanding.  To assert that one knows that B
> > resulted from A (aside from
> > being an instance of logically fallacious reasoning
> > by converse) is the
> > utmost arrogance--just as it is arrogant to assert,
> > as others have in other
> > discussions here, that one knows what G*d wants or
> > how G*d works.  The rabbi
> > who made this statement was, I believe, essentially
> > denying, in that
> > statement, the existence of a G*d whose workings are
> > beyond our
> > comprehension--which is the only G*d Judaism knows.
> >
> > In response to such a catastrophe, I believe, it's
> > foolish as well as
> > arrogant to assert that one knows why it
> > happens--and also foolish to
> > dismiss any such possibility as ludicrous (though I
> > understand why one would
> > wince from this particular explanation, as I did).
> > The Jewish-wisdom
> > response to the question why (in a spiritual sense)
> > this, or any such
> > disaster, occurs (aside from the rigorous
> > investigation that is obviously
> > needed, in a society that actually sets itself up
> > for this sort of buildings
> > accident) is what one of my own rebbes frequently
> > said about many things we,
> > and he, don't understand:
> >
> > Who knows?
> >
> > --Robert Cohen
> >
> >
> > >From: MaxwellSt (at) aol(dot)com
> > >Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
> > >To: World music from a Jewish slant
> > <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
> > >Subject: Re: because of mixed dancing
> > >Date: Sat, 2 Jun 2001 10:51:38 EDT
> > >
> > >Then it makes you wonder what the Satmar Rabbi did
> > wrong to incur the
> > >punishment of losing his daughter and granddaughter
> > to a fire, caused by
> > >lighting yontif candles....
> > >
> > >There are those people who see the world in terms
> > of cause and effect.
> > >They
> > >wear very tight, smug little glasses.  They are not
> > deeply loved except by
> > >their own fanatical followers.
> >
> >
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