Is religion, or in our case historical Traditional Judaism, relevant? Yes, of course it is. Historical Traditional Judaism is relevant because, given the concerns that people typically have, the Torah has a very good track record of producing results.It is fortunate that Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb limited his list of crimes to violent ones. That way he doesn't have to worry about removing money-laundering, tax evasion, organ trafficking, child labor violations, identity theft, bank fraud, immigration violations, etc., from the next edition of his booklet "Living Up To The Truth" (although he probably should delete child abuse from the list of "almost unknown" crimes.)
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Everyone wants to live with as little crime as possible. Again, Jewish Tradition is very proud that within Torah communities, crime, violent crime in particular, is almost unknown. Imagine interviewing the presiding police officer in a precinct in Williamsburg, Borough Park, Flatbush, Monsey, Monroe, or any place where you have large concentrations of Traditional Jews. Ask him how many times he is called out on a murder charge, rape, assault and battery, mugging, child abuse, etc. The incidence of these sort of crimes in Orthodox communities is very low.
(As readers of my sporadic blog may know, Gottlieb's writings generally rank very high on the bogometer, as described more fully in God is a Mafia Boss. But if you are ready for some more Gottlieb-style logic that allows him to conclude his thesis with "Therefore, Judaism is the only justified way to live.", you may view the booklet in its entirety here.)
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10 comments:
Unfortunately Rav Gottleib's chochmah is best taken in small doses by people who don't know better.
Generally, incidences of violant crimes tend to be low in middle-class neighborhoods. Frum people tend to live in middle-class neighborhoods (often regardless of their actual income).
>The incidence of these sort of crimes in Orthodox communities is very low.
That's probably true of Mormon (non FLDS) communities as well.
But either way, Friday was a very embarrasing day at work, with those blaring headlines
BH - yeah, my original said substitute "Fundamental Mormon Community" for "Torah Community" and this section would read the same. But I whittled it way down since I found myself starting to deconstruct many of his points and that wasn't the intention of this post.
G*3 - have to disagree with this, since his basic point re violent crimes is not only largely true today in very poor Orthodox neighborhoods of Israel but has also been true historically during times of forced poverty.
Garnel - don't know better about what? Isn't he a major voice in the kiruv movement and - if so - are you saying that he is not appropriate for the job?
"...given the concerns that people typically have, the Torah has a very good track record of producing results."
It does!? Which Torah is he reading!? Mine spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the minutiae of animal sacrifice and spending page after page after page on thousand year old genealogy lists. Those are the concerns that people typically have!?
"It is fortunate that Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb limited his list of crimes to violent ones."
And even about that he's lying. The Orthodox communities in America simply don't talk about child abuse, sexual abuse, and spousal abuse. And the fundie communities in Israel are working themselves up to full-fledged Islamic terrorism. Jews aren't violent? That's because they're a small, persecuted people with little to no power. If the crazies in Israel take power, you'll see just what Torah True Jews are capable of.
happy, you are rockin today.
I went to hear a Gottlieb lecture in 1983. He handed out study sheets the last line of which was "...therefore eating a pork chop is as bad as torturing little children for fun".
Uhh...mmm-kay.
Perhaps he was a very early PETA member?
Is throwing rocks at passing vehicles on Shabbos, or beating up a woman because she won't sit in the back of the bus considered "violent?"
No, that's called l'shem shamayim!
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