Message 7: February 18, 2010 5:04:44PM
Yoram has left a new comment on your post “WHO IS JORGE PUELLO, PT 2: JUMPING DOWN THE RABBIT…“:
>
For Judaism to be operative in what we call the “chain of tradition”, the full force the Written and Oral Torah, the commentaries of the Talmud, and the post-Rabbinic tradition as deposited in the Responsa have to operate hand in hand.
To render any of these useless, renders the whole “chain” inoperative. For this reason, Maimónides in his Mishne Torah – who in the name of the Sages – says:
> [MT Hilkhot Mamurim, II.2]
Because it is certain that we all are dwarfs in the presence of the luminaries of the tradition, and when will it happen for us to surpass them? Let me let you into a secret: Never.
And how can anyone explain to the Anusim – with the full use of Halakha – how these most central matters on Israel’s identity do not come violated to its very core through the use of Giur?
Is this perhaps a joke? Can Israel be Israel without what the Sages have known for all times? And how can one invalidate the lineage of another Israelite without first bringing proof? And borrowing an expression from Maimonides, to make Anusim (coerced Israelites) into Gerim (adopted into the house of Jacob) is a “ranter of nonsense.”
Since when is permissible to take advantage of the innocent’s ignorance?
It is certain proving the Ignorance of some individuals through the Anusim filter.
And how we prove their ignorance? Ask them how many Rabbis decreed in favor of Anusim; Ask them for how long this went on; Ask them to prove you how their decision to make a Ger from an Anusim validates tradition.
They shall remain speechless for they have not been taught; yet they do not seem to have the responsibility to explain themselves either. As Maimonides lamented over 800 years ago:
> [Iggeret ha-Shemad, Chp I]
Yet, ignorance by itself is not a sin.
Under all this, Anusim have every right to resist a “conversion” as understood in the sense of “adoption”. On the other hand, in no way they can, as with any Israelite, remove themselves from practicing Judaism . . .
Giur may be the “only” way as offered by some today, yet I cannot see how this is the correct way.
