re: #11 CuriousLurker

Ah, well this is no small task. But here we go.

One of the constants in Israeli politics is the legal conflict—between two sets of lawyers. One set of lawyers is the rabbis. That’s really what they do, make legal rulings, sit on Beis Dinim (courts based on Talmudic Civil Law), and interpret the Torah through legal eyes. They do this so much that many regular Jews are under the impression that the Torah is only a legal code.

The other set of lawyers are those of the secular state, magistrates, the Supreme Court, regular lawyers. Who has authority over whom? On the one hand, the Torah scholars have a higher ranking, given so much honor afforded Torah scholars in scripture. On the other hand, Israel is a secular state precisely because the entire apparatus needed for Torah scholars (the Temple, the Sanhedrin, a wise ruler) doesn’t exist. And there is the dictum, for exile, that the law of the land is the law. And as long as the Shechinah (the feminine aspect of Gd) is in exile, all Jews are in exile. The Shechinah is still in exile.

So the issue about the King’s Torah isn’t about the book at all, but rather, does the state have the power to force the rabbis to obey secular legal documents? This division isn’t ending until the exile is over.

Is the King’s Torah a significant book? Probably not, unless you have a wobbly table. Now, regarding the content of the book. Jewish legal debates are…uh…free wheeling. LGF is tame in comparison. The best analogy I can think of is from baseball, where the game you see in the stands is so so much different from the game on the field. In the stands the game looks slower, it looks like you can play it. You can’t. So the moral indignation is an indication of great misunderstanding. And there isn’t any way someone from Oxford or Cambridge, or Harvard is going to get it. Nor will they be able to jump into the fray and stay on topic, or follow the discussion.