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Steven Mock - Message # 5
Kol Nidre debate with Salvador Astucia - Full Text
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From: s...@nizkor.org
Newsgroups:
alt.conspiracy.jfk,alt.revisionism,talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.iraq,soc.culture.palestine
Subject: Re: Be Patient Hate Mongers
Date: 21 Aug 2005 11:00:22 -0700
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What can I say, Mr. Astucia. I'm truly sorry. It appears you were
hoping to catch me in some kind of trivial contradiction, so as to
justify your declaring victory and running away from the discussion.
In fact, you were so sure this tactic would work, its failure seems to
have made you a bit funny in the head, as you seem to believe it *must*
have worked even though it is clear to anyone reading this exchange
without your delusions that it did not. I didn't realize you were that
desperate to escape from an argument that has evidently become quite
embarrassing to you and your belief-system.
I'm so sorry to disappoint you, but nothing that I said before is any
different than what I am saying now: Nedarim 23 does not refer
specifically to Kol Nidre. It cannot, as it predates it by some 200
years, at least. Rather, it is but one of many sources from which this
prayer and the ritual surrounding it evolved and came to be understood.
That is what I said before you posted that except from the 1906 Jewish
Encyclopedia, that is what I said afterwards, and that is precisely the
point that is asserted and substatiated in abundance by this text.
I know it must be embarrassing to have scored so decisively on your own
net, but snipping and ignoring my arguments on the grounds that I am
"backpedaling" (and even if I was, I fail to see how this entitles you
to abdicate the discussion) is about as shameless a dodge as has ever
been seen on this newsgroup... and as you can imagine that puts it up
against some pretty stiff competition.
Now, if you want to show that you are serious about discussing these
matters, I suggest you address my points.
As I said before, your tactic - in this and every other discussion
we've got ourselves into - seems to be 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 (and for the 5th time now, I believe).
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 it
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?=20
Steven Mock
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