Sunday, July 28, 2013

To Be True Or To Give Honor

In a previous post I stated the the Lubavitcher Rebbe was wrong in saying that a Geocentric Universe is just as correct as a Heliocentric one, if not more so. I later explained in this other post the reasons that his position made little sense and went against reality. (One example is that a non-moving earth with a Universe spinning around it at a rate of 24-hours/cycle would cause one to have a season, such as winter, to be only 6 hours long. There are many other issues as well.



Several people had sent me private email, chastising my criticism, saying that while the Rebbe's position was not as correct and while calculations would not work using it, it does not mean that it is wrong, just that it is less useful. Another claims that I was missing the nuance of language concerning this great person. There were other exchanges that were a bit more caustic.

Now, I do realize that, had I written this in the 1st century CE, I would have been taken out and whipped an inch from my life, or put to death, for daring to correct a Rabbi in front of his students (even though he is dead, that is a minor point).


In the July-August period we read the following parshyot:

  • V'etchanan - Keep all of the rules that God gave you, and do not stray left or right.
  • Eikev - Keep all of them and do not tread on even the lightest mitzvah with your heel.
  • Shoftim- Appoint judges and officers of the court. Do exactly as they rule, and do not deviate left or right (even if they are wrong and seem to be saying that right is left and left is right - Rashi). Any mand who does not obey the Kohen or the Judge shall die.
These rulings that would give the priest and the Judge power would be later expanded to include all things besides civil courts, meaning, that a Rabbi would become the judge who would rule, and you are obligate to accept his words in nearly all things. (There are forms that would be held exempt).

Now, the Sages took this very clearly, holding that any student who openly corrected his Rabbi in public would be put to death. What follows is from Berachot 31b, where the Rabbis are discussing that story of Hannah bringing Shmuel, at the age of two, to Eli the priest:
For this child I prayed. Rabbi Eleazar said: Shmuel was guilty of giving a decision in the presence of his teacher; for it says, "And when the bullock was slain, the child was brought to Eli." Because the bullock was slain, did they bring the child to Eli? What it means is this. Eli said to them: 'Call a priest and let him come and kill [the animal]'. When Samuel saw them looking for a priest to kill it, he said to them, 'Why do you go looking for a priest to kill it? The shechitah may be performed by a layman'! They brought him to Eli, who asked him, 'How do you know this?' He replied: 'Is it written, 'The priest shall kill'?' It is written, 'The priests shall present [the blood]: the office of the priest begins with the receiving of the blood, which shows that shechitah may be performed by a layman.'  He said to him: You have spoken very well, but all the same you are guilty of giving a decision in the presence of your teacher, and whoever gives a decision in the presence of his teacher is liable to the death penalty. Thereupon Hannah came and cried before him: 'I am the woman that stood by thee here etc.'. He said to her: Let me punish him and I will pray to God and He will give thee a better one than this. She then said to him: 'For this child I prayed'.
This is but one instance, but, as I said, they took this chutzpah of a student very seriously.

Because of that, today, where one is not beaten or killed for saying "You do realize that you end up with a 6-hour season, don't you?", we end up with people who hold one of the following positions when a Rabbi is obviously saying something obviously wrong as the Lubavitcher Rebbe did. You have people who will:

  • Cry "Lashon HaRah!", using the Chofetz Chaim's redefinition of the term when they hear something that they cannot respond to.
  • Deny it was ever said.
  • Claim that it was a metaphor.
  • Say that it is not wrong, but another form of correctness.
  • Say it's a misunderstanding by someone not well educated to the nuance of the language used.
  • Claim that you are wrong, since the speaker must be right.
  • Redefine what was said or what opposes what was said.
  • Say amazing things that will cause your jaw to drop!

Or to quote Ben Yehodia in his commentary to Pesachim 94b where the Cosmology of the Sages was not in line with reality, he wrote:
"Whatever the explanation, you must know with truth and faith that the words of the Sages of Israel in every place are living and enduring, for they are truth and their words are truth. And aside from the secret meaning to which they intended to allude with their words, sometimes you find that even in the peshat approach they had a deep intent. And it is because we are lacking many preparations even in the way of peshat, we cannot understand their true meaning, even according to the peshat of their words…"
In other words, if it appears wrong that they said that the sun goes around the Earth, then it is really your misunderstanding of their intent. But then, in the 20th century you had the Chabad Rebbe proclaim that the view was to be accepted at the phsat level, and that it was just as correct as actual cosmology.
So the question is this:

If someone says something so incredibly awkward, and you know that it has a chance to mislead others to make errors in their life, which comes first, respecting the person (or the memory) and letting the error not only stand, but to support it? Or should one speak the truth?

It is my position that if someone, like Ovadia Yosef, who claims that God sent a disaster to the USA because of George Bush's participation in the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif, says such outrageous things, do we keep silent? Or do we cry out "Are you kidding me?!?! Excuse me, it's time for you to step away from the podium, put your hands in the air, and walk away from your role as a leader.!

But you will always have leaders who have your fans. Frauds, such as Ner ben Artzi succeeds because there is not a great outcry to tell the truth. The Lubavitcher Rebbe, who is seen as nearly a deity (if not a full deity) by thousands (if not tens of thousands), made incredibly bad statements about science, and his devotees will treat them as "gospel", hold them close to their hearts, and claim that they are true.

That is the error of keeping silent when the truth is trampled upon. By trying to not harm the presentation of a human who erred, you are a passive supporter of misleading others. 

In the first century, I would be dead by now. But, then, I live in the 21st century where I can freely point to the Emperor and declare "He has no clothes on!"



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