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Steven Mock - Message # 2
Kol Nidre debate with Salvador Astucia - Full Text
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From: s...@nizkor.org
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alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.revisionism,talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.iraq,soc.culture.palestine
Subject: Re: Be Patient Hate Mongers
Date: 20 Aug 2005 17:45:29 -0700
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Salvador Astucia wrote:
> It clarifies your point of view anyway. I just happen to have a copy of
> the Kol Nidre description from the 1906 edition of the Jewish
> Encyclopedia. The description makes several references to the book of
> Nedarim, the Talmud book from which I cited the prayer which encourages
> the breaking of vows. The Jewish Encyclopedia description of the Kol
> Nidre includes the ceremony, history, words, and music to the Kol
> Nidre.
Dude, you're really not getting it. Obviously the text of Nedarim has
something to do with Kol Nidre. This does not mean that it is
referring to it specifically, or that the development and understanding
of this prayer stems from this verse exclusively. Your tactic - in
this and every other discussion we've got ourselves into - is to take
one item of information, burden it with your own interpretations, and
then declare that item - and the conclusions you draw from it - to be
the only information necessary to understanding the true nature of
Jews. Then, any time anyone tries to explain to you why its a little
bit more complicated than that, you ignore them, snip their evidence
and arguments like they don't exist, and keep waving this one detail of
information at them like a holy relic to a vampire, further showcasing
your inability to comprehend the difference between the veracity of
this one detail of information and that of the grand generalisations
you extrapolate from it.
How you or any one else goes from the notion that a formula recited one
a year - of which I'm sure the Kol Nidre serves perfectly well - which
prevents a coffee appointment from having the force of a divinely
sanctioned vow, to the conclusion that the same prayer gives Jews
blanket license to engage in deception of any kind - regardless of
whatever other prohibitions against bearing false witness there might
be in Jewish law - is truly beyond me. And rather than cutting and
pasting large chuncks of someone else's text in the hopes that sheer
volume will be taken for an argument, I would like to see if you're
capable of even trying to explain how it does.
Lest we forget how our bickering over this irrelevant detail began.
You claimed that "Judaism" reintroducted the Kol Nidre in 1945 in order
to enable Jews to lie about the Holocaust. Since then, you have
snipped and ignored every reference to any evidence showing that 1)
that Jews are taught that Kol Nidre does not permit them to engage in
deception, and that other laws and prohibitions make that clear
(something that your article below substantiates far better than I
did), 2) it was only one branch of Judaism that reintroduced the prayer
(and the one least likely to think that such a divine dispensation
would even be necessary and effective) and 3) that this was done in the
context of a decade-long process of reintroducing hundreds of
previously discontinued practices further to an overall reassessment of
this movement's relationship to the tradition.
These facts are inconvenient to your conspiracy theory, so they don't
exist. And that's why am I confident that you will snip and ignore
them again.
As for your encyclopedia entry (ca. 1906), I can see why you posted the
entire thing, including sections irrelevant to our dispute. That way
you could *claim* that it supports your case (and frankly, whether she
does or not is irrelevant to its credibility in terms of *your* ability
to support it), in the hopes that no one will have the energy to read
past the first few paragraphs to check up on you. I snip to the
relevent passages:
> The "Kol Nidre" has been one of the means widely used by Jewish
> apostates and by enemies of the Jews to cast suspicion
>
> Use by Anti-Semites.
> on the trustworthiness of an oath taken by a Jew (Wagenseil, "Tela
> Ignea, Disputatio R. Jechielis," p. 23; Eisenmenger, "Entdecktes
> Judenthum," vol. ii., ch. ix., pp. 489 et seq ., Konigsberg, 1711;
> Bodenschatz, "Kirchliche Verfassung der Heutigen Juden," part ii., ch.
> v., =A7 10, Frankfort and Leipsic, 1748; Rohling, "Der Talmudjude," pp.
> 80 et seq., Munster, 1877); so that many legislators considered it
> necessary to have a special form of oath administered to Jews ("Jew's
> oath"), and many judges refused to allow them to take a supplementary
> oath, basing their objections chiefly on this prayer (Zunz, "G. S." ii.
> 244; comp. pp. 246, 251). As early as 1240 Jehiel of Paris was obliged
> to defend the "Kol Nidre" against these charges. It can not be denied
> that, according to the usual wording of the formula, an unscrupulous
> man might think that it offers a means of escape from the obligations
> and promises which he had assumed and made in regard to others.
>
> Refers Only to Individual Vows.
> The teachers of the synagogues, however, have never failed to point out
> to their cobelievers that the dispensation from vows in the "Kol Nidre"
> refers only to those which an individual voluntarily assumes for
> himself alone (see RoSH to Ned. 23b) and in which no other persons or
> their interests are involved. In other words, the formula is restricted
> to those vows which concern only the relation of man to his conscience
> or to his Heavenly Judge (see especially Tos. to Ned. 23b). In the
> opinion of Jewish teachers, therefore, the object of the "Kol Nidre" in
> declaring oaths null and void is to give protection from divine
> punishment in case of violation of the vow. No vow, promise, or oath,
> however, which concerns another person, a court of justice, or a
> community is implied in the "Kol Nidre." It must be remembered,
> moreover, that five geonim were against while only one was in favor of
> reciting the prayer (Zunz, "G. V." p. 390, note a), and furthermore
> that even so early an authority as Saadia wished to restrict it to
> those vows which were extorted from the congregation in the synagogue
> in times of persecution ("Kol Bo," l.c .); and he declared explicitly
> that the "Kol Nidre" gave no absolution from oaths which an individual
> had taken during the year. Judah ben Barzillai, a Spanish author of the
> twelfth century, in his halakic work "Sefer ha-'Ittim," declares that
> the custom of reciting the "Kol Nidre" was unjustifiable and
> misleading, since many ignorant persons believe that all their vows and
> oaths are annulled through this formula, and consequently they take
> such obligations on themselves carelessly ("Orhot Hayyim," p. 106a).
>
> Jewish Opposition.
> For the same reason Jeroham ben Meshullam, who lived in Provence about
> the middle of the fourteenth century, inveighed against those fools
> who, trusting to the "Kol Nidre," made vows recklessly, and he declared
> them incapable of giving testimony ("Toledot Adam we-Hawwah," ed. 1808,
> section 14, part iii., p. 88; see Zunz, "G. V." p. 390). The Karaite
> Judah Hadassi, who wrote the "Eshkol ha-Kofer" at Constantinople in
> 1148 (see Nos. 139, 140 of that work), likewise protested against the
> "Kol Nidre." Among other opponents of it in the Middle Ages were
> Yom-Tob ben Abraham Isbili (d. 1350) in his "Hiddushim"; Isaac ben
> Sheshet, rabbi in Saragossa (d. 1406), Responsa, No. 394 (where is also
> a reference to the preceding); the author of the "Kol Bo" (15th cent.);
> and Leon of Modena (d. 1648 [see N. S. Libowitz, "Leon Modena," p. 33,
> New York, 1901]). In addition, nearly all printed mahzorim contain
> expositions and explanations of the "Kol Nidre" in the restricted sense
> mentioned above.
>
> Yielding to the numerous accusations and complaints brought against the
> "Kol Nidre" in the course of centuries, the rabbinical conference held
> at Brunswick in 1844 decided unanimously that the formula was not
> essential, and that the members of the convention should exert their
> influence toward securing its speedy abolition ("Protocolle der Ersten
> Rabbiner Versammlung," p. 41, Brunswick, 1844).
>
> In the Nineteenth Century.
> At other times and places during the nineteenth century emphasis was
> frequently laid upon the fact that "in the 'Kol Nidre' only those vows
> and obligations are implied which are voluntarily assumed, and which
> are, so to speak, taken before God, thus being exclusively religious in
> content; but that those obligations are in no wise included which refer
> to other persons or to non-religious relations" ("Allg. Zeit. des Jud."
> 1885, p. 396). The decision of the conference was accepted by many
> congregations of western Europe and in all the American Reform
> congregations, which while retaining the melody substituted for the
> formula a German hymn or a Hebrew psalm, or changed the old text to the
> words, "May all the vows arise to thee which the sons of Israel vow
> unto thee, O Lord, -- that they will return to thee with all their
> heart, and from this Day of Atonement until the next," etc. Naturally
> there were many Orthodox opponents of this innovation, among whom M.
> Lehmann, editor of the "Israelit," was especially prominent (see ib.
> 1863, Nos. 25, 38). The principal factor which preserved the great
> religious authority of the "Kol Nidre" well into the nineteenth
> century, and which continually raises up new defenders for it, is
> doubtless its plaintive and appealing melody, which made a deep
> impression even on Lenau (see his remarks in "Der Israelit," 1864, No.
> 40, pp. 538 et seq.) and which was the favorite melody of Moltke, who
> had the violinist Joachim play it for him.
<snip: stuff about the melody>
Now, Mr. Astucia, what do you have to say for yourself?
Steven Mock
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