RE: because of mixed dancing

[Daniel B. Schwartz <SCHWARTZESQ...>]

No one has really sought to give the poor rabbi the benefit of the doubt.
Why not take his statements for what they are, namely the utterances of one
who was there and who, in his own way given his limited capacities as a
human being in shock, is trying to make sense out of a tragedy that defies
human understanding?  In other words, give this man a break.



-----Original Message-----
From: owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
[mailto:owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org]On Behalf Of Robert Cohen
Sent: Wed, June 06, 2001 5:30 PM
To: World music from a Jewish slant
Subject: Re: because of mixed dancing


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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