Capital punishment is not the issue. Two other issues are far more important in addressing concerns that Israel could become Talibanized. The first is that not everyone listens to Moshe Grylak – or his gemara. You can argue that the community should not be held responsible for the escapades of kano’im and Sikrikim – but they aren’t doing a very good job holding them in check either – or even speaking out against them. Why wouldn’t a chiloni Israel look at their activities with concern that as the Chareidi community grows, there will be more on these zealots, who will become even more brazen in time?
More important is the gemara that Rabbi Grylak does not quote: Rosh Hashanah 6, and elsewhere, which establishes the authority of the Jewish court to compel people to perform mitzvos. The plain meaning of the text is that people who are reluctant to perform mitzvos can be compelled through grievous bodily force to obey the law. Couple this with the authority of beis din to act le-afrushei me-issura/ to distance a potential sinner from his ability to sin, and you have a license for batei din to compel full observance of the Torah, both affirmative and proscriptive obligations. No witnesses, no forewarning, none of Rabbi Grylak’s niceties that calmed his secular friends. Why should they not anticipate groups of people jumping out of vans, forcing tefillin and tzitzis on their bodies, and bulldozing their soccer stadiums?
A Haredi majority is not so easy to achieve.
ReplyDeleteAnd vast majority of Hareidm are fine law abiding shomrei Torah communities. Or perhaps the sikrikim and other maniacs are not really Haredim.
There is an interchange of people in both directions, between Secular and Orthodox, haredi and zionist, modern haredi/secular. etc. Nobody can accurately predict the make up of a society in another 50 years. Perhaps Haredim will have different approach to what they do now. They may be the modern orthodox of the next generation. And Sephardim have a totally diferent outlook from their Ashkenazi brothers.
Even Glatt Kosher will not be the same - since it takes maybe 100 chickens to produce 1 glatt kosher chicken, and the system can only survive economically if the less glatt have an outlet. So it is a very complex matter, nobody can predict!
Glatt kosher chicken? Either you dont know what Glatt means or you started checking chicken lungs and have found that only 1% do not have lesions. If that is true, the kosher world has some serious problems.
ReplyDeleteCharedim, or descendents of today's charedim, will one day be the majority, because of their high birth rate. But the dati leumi also have a high birthrate. Even when the charedim become the majority, the dati leumi will be a big chunk of the population. They will not let the charedim rule over them through some Iran-style theocracy. The dati leumi believe in themselves, in their own more moderate approach, and they mean business.
ReplyDelete"Eddie said...since it takes maybe 100 chickens to produce 1 glatt kosher chicken"
ReplyDeleteReally? Have you confirmed this with any shochtim or with even one shochet you know? Have you ever been to a shlacht-hoize or abattoir where they shecht kosher chickens?
It is not what you imagine, certainly not as far as the shechting of chickens is concerned in our times with thousands of birds coming along on conveyer belts and the shochet barely has time to slit each scrawny throat with no time for much else. They may stop to check a chicken here and there but the main emphasis is on the skill of speed!
The main thing that counts to call chickens "glatt" on a label nowadays is not in checking the internal simanin of each and every chicken, as should be done, but rather, that a) the shochet is supposed to be a yerei shomayim and mumcha with reliable kabola to shecht, b) the facility is under very strict constant reliable hasgocha, c) the cleaning of the chickens starting with the mechanical removal of feathers, to the cutting them open, soaking and salting and rinsing them is done under watchful mashgichim as many of the workers cleaning out the entrails are non-Jewish workers, they are not throwing out 99 chickens for every one they keep, and that d) that the final packaging and shipment is done to comply with various halachos especially that it should not become bosor shenisalem min ha'ayin. The main point is, they are NOT shechting a 100 and then "only" using "one" for being "glatt" -- on the contrary they are rushing tens of thousands of birds down a line to be shechted and kashered and packaged and refrigerated, and then marketed and shipped, as quickly as possible.
With the beheimas gasos it's different, in those cases they MUST check internally and in those cases many animals may indeed be rejected for not being "glatt" and subsequently tossed over to the non-kosher side because of internal lesions in the animals' lungs and those places where mumchim know where to look and find such things.
So please, don't confuse the oxen with the hens or the cows with the chickens!
I've long predicted what a Charedi state will look like: A rotation arrangenment chief of staff, a government headed by a deputy prime minister (since we don't chalila participate in the treife media), and three supreme courts that don't recognize each other's authority.
ReplyDeleteYou think Arab unity is hard to achieve? Veday Lechakima.