There are two "commandments" (statements?) in the Torah that I have issues accepting as given by a kind and loving God.
They're emotional ones, not logical ones. And yes, I've heard the "don't try to be kinder then the Torah" argument, and the comparisons to a mother, her child, and the dentist, and the "you've just been influenced by liberals/Hollywood" and the people telling me that it doesn't matter what I think, God said so and therefore it's so.
None of which helps. I, like everyone else, have my own ideas of what is good and evil, and those are not so easily swayed- nor do I necessarily think they should be to conform with someone else's belief of what good and evil is.
The two things I am talking of are the commandment to wipe out Amalek, and the prohibition/decrying of homosexuality.
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As I said in my first post, I do not believe people are intrinsically good or evil. People aren't born evil. People make choices throughout their lives that might be considered good or evil, and others will judge them on those choices depending on said other's moral standpoints, but no one is born evil
Moreover, good and evil is subjective. Everyone has their own opinions on what is good and what is evil, and just because I consider something good doesn't mean the next person will.
However, according to the Torah, we are commanded to wipe out the "nation of Amalek." Why? because their umpteenth-great ancestors attacked us once in the desert. And apparently, that makes any descendant of them unworthy to live. Because it's their fault that their ancestors did what they did, because they choose who to be born to (one person I talked to said that they did choose, before they were born, and invoked the concept of gilgulim-reincarnation of souls. I didn't buy it.).
I find this commandment especially galling in light of the Holocaust. Essentially, we are being told "remember the Holocaust? Here's the real reason it happened- it's a model for what you should do to others. Go for it!"
Hitler believed he was right as well...
I remember reading a Little Midrash-Says book on Sefer Shmuel when I was younger, where it said Saul was "to merciful" because he let the king live. Somehow I don't buy that either, that he was merciful. Sounds to me more like he wanted a trophy....
He felt mercy to the king, the man who could (arguably) be considered the one most in charge of a nations policy, the one person who might most be considered responsible for a nations "evil actions," but I don't know, no mercy for, say, the thousands of infants he killed (or was responsible for the deaths of). The people who saw their family's cut down in front of them, for no reason other then they were born in the "wrong" race? The 9 year old cowering in the corner as his father and mother are killed in front of his eyes?!
I was talking to my Father about Saul in specific, and why we don't generally consider him to be just as bad as Hitler. My father argued that you can't judge people in past societies by the same standards as your own. For example, he said, you can't go up to a slave-owner from the 1600s and call them a monster because they owned slaves, because their society at that time did not consider that wrong. In the same way, total war was an acceptable practice back then.
I have a couple of issues with this.
I suppose the first is a simple emotional response. While logically I might understand what he's saying, I still think owning slaves, or committing genocide, is wrong-no matter when it's done. And I suppose in a way that proves his point - we're all a moral product of our time.
Secondly, you could argue, say for slavery, that the slaves probably believed it was wrong...does the fact that the society which made them slaves believed they should be slaves invalidate their moral standpoint on this?
Also, society doesn't change overnight. So at what point do you say " OK, now it's wrong?"
Things get even more troublesome for me when talking about the Torah itself. The Torah, I do believe, has to relevant, in a halachic sense, for Jews of all times and places (if not necessarily in a historical or scientific sense). the Torah, I believe, is not a history book, nor is it a science textbook - but it is a religious document meant to let us know how we Jews should conduct our lives.
Which means the commandment for the genocide of Amalek would still have to be relevant, morally correct, and applicable today. And that I can't deal with..
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The other major issue I have in the Torah is the way it treats homosexuality. I find it incomprehensible that a supposedly "perfectly good" God could create (just about) every single human being in the world with the same needs/desires for love, companionship, and empathy; make a large portion of them need it from the opposite sex, then take a small subset and keep them wanting it from the same sex. Then, basically call them abominations (and no, the fact that it "only calls the act an abomination, not the person" is no help whatsoever. Telling someone that their innermost desires for love, that they never chose and can't change, are abominable, is just as bad).
They have the same emotions, needs, wants and desires as everyone else. They feel longing, love, pain, and loss just like everyone else. The only difference is who they need it from.
(And don't give me the argument "oh, so pedophiles and rapists and sociopaths are ok? they just have needs for different people....." NO. There is a BIG difference between harming or forcing someone and feeling love and having a relationship with a mature, consenting adult.
And again, no one chooses their sexuality. In fact, I would not be surprised at all to hear (I have not actually polled this) that many, many people with alternate sexualities then 'straight" would, if having been given the choice, chosen to be "straight."
And that's just sad. because their is nothing wrong with it. because society as a whole has made their existence, often , miserable. For doing nothing other then being different.
I can't bring myself to worship as "perfectly good" the "God" that codified that.
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So what do I do. I don't know. For now, it seems to be a thing that other Orthodox Jews with similar mindsets on these issues to me do. Ignore them. A kind of cognitive dissonance... not really a solution in the long run, but I don't know what else to do.
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