re: #12 Bob Levin

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

Many thanks for taking time out of your day to read the article and provide such a thorough response. It is tremendously helpful to be provided with some context, especially with regard to such a complex subject.

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.

I find this extremely interesting. I’ll definitely seek more info on it.

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.

Heh, tame in comparison indeed. It’s the same with Islamic debates because of the depth & breadth of specialized knowledge involved.