Comments on: The Israeli Rabbis’ Letter: a Translation http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/12/the-israeli-rabbis-letter-a-translation/ Informed reflection on the events of the day Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:00:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 By: Alt Tags http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/12/the-israeli-rabbis-letter-a-translation/comment-page-1/#comment-20925 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:54:24 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=1330#comment-20925 Alt Tags…

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]]> By: Christian http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/12/the-israeli-rabbis-letter-a-translation/comment-page-1/#comment-4803 Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:37:29 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=1330#comment-4803 There is definitely a difference between the first half and second half of the letter. The second half seems totally unacceptable, since it puts economic gain over the dignity of human beings. However, the first half seems purely biblical. I am not a religious person, but I do value integrity. The American culture I was born into strongly promoted multiculturalism. In school we were taught to respect everyone’s beliefs, to live and let live. I see the pragmatic value of this, but the relativism seems problematic to me. The only way I see multiculturalism functioning is by the participants ignoring those parts of their beliefs that conflict with their living in a multicultural society. If I put myself in the shoes of a Christian, God and salvation are of ultimate importance. If I truly believe this then I am put in quite a situation seeing that so many around me are sinning and are on the path to hell. Moreover, if I have children, I would surely want them to be saved, so it would be very important to keep away any significant influences that might damn my children to hell. So getting back into my own shoes, I wonder why Christians are not out tirelessly trying to save the souls of non-believers. Wouldn’t they be obligated to do so? And how can they possibly stand living in a society filled with such lust and materialism. How could a true Christian accept such a society? Only through the repression of fundamental conflicts.

I would actually rather live in a society where people expressed their religious beliefs completely. I’d like to see the hard choices being made rather than the continuation of the repression. This does not mean that holy war would follow, for religions tend to advocate love and compassion above all else. Furthermore, hard choices require hard thinking, which would most likely carry over into the non-religious realms of people’s lives, such as the realm of politics. This might then lead to the development of a political culture where deliberate consideration is the norm rather than the exception.

]]> By: Irit Dekel http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/12/the-israeli-rabbis-letter-a-translation/comment-page-1/#comment-3234 Tue, 21 Dec 2010 17:05:37 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=1330#comment-3234 I would like to add a reflection to the reflection and join in the
fear of what President Peres called a moral crisis and I see as diminishing moral standards, on which Netanyahu himself reflected in the newly established Bible contest for adults on December 7: “how would we feel if people said not to rent or sell apartments to Jews”? precisely this leap to seeing Jews as victims in Palestine before 1948 or more directly, in Europe of the 1930’s and 40’s make it easy to keep treating Palestinians as others in the Isralei discourse. Today, a gang of young Jerusalem and Settelment residents were arrested in suspicion that they attacked Palestinians in Jerusalem: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/teen-gang-arrested-on-suspicion-of-attacking-arabs-in-jerusalem-1.331826. This has been the case in the territories and other cities in Israel for a while, and is escalating now.

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