Avodah Mailing List

Volume 44: Number 6

Wed, 28 Jan 2026

• 1. The terms Jew and Hebrew (Akiva Miller)
• 2. Re: Normal People Don't Care About Those Things (Micha Berger)
• 3. Re: priotitizing mitzvot (Micha Berger)
• 4. longevity (Joel Rich)
• 5. Re: Normal People Don't Care About Those Things (Meir Shinnar)
• 6. Kach Shamati (Joel Rich)
• 7. Re: Normal People Don't Care About Those Things (Micha Berger)

.
In the thread "Normal People Don't Care About Those Things", R' Micha
Berger wrote:

> Similarly, I have no problem using the word Jew for someone
> who is subject to the covenants of Sinai and Arvos Moav even
> before "Yehudi" was applied beyond sheivet Yehudah (Esther 2:5,
> Mordechai is described as a Yehudi and a Benjaminite), even to
> someone who lived in Malkhis Yisrael.
>
> The concept a word was coined to refer to can exist before
> the word.

I would like to offer an even better example, where a recognized authority
used the word "Jew" in reference to people who lived even *before* "the
covenants of Sinai and Arvos Moav".

Namely, Onkelos, who translated "Ivri" as "Yehudi" before Moshe Rabenu was
born in Shemos 1:15,16,19, when he was a baby in Shemos 2:6,7, when he was
a young adult in 2:11,13, and of course in all his dealings with Par'o in
3:18, 5:3, 7:16, and onwards.

When I first read RMB's post and began composing this response, I had
misremembered, and I thought that Onkelos *always* translated Ivri as
Yehudi, and that he made that choice simplify matters for his audience (as
he often does). But in my research, I found that "Ivri" appears six times
in Sefer Bereshis, and Onkelos left ALL of those as "Ivri", not switching
to "Yehudi" until Sefer Shemos.

This leads me to conclude that Onkelos did NOT choose a simple but
anachronistic term for Sefer Bereshis. In other words, if one's only source
would be Onkelos, one would not label Avraham Avinu as "the first Jew",
because Onkelos called him a Hebrew (Bereshis 14:13).

But Onkelos does use the term "Jew" for people who have long preceded
Mordechai. It seems to me that in Onkelos' view, the term "Jew" does NOT
derive from the dominance of Shevet Yehuda after the ten shevatim broke
off. Rather, Onkelos uses the term after we had already been in Mitzrayim
for a while: not yet when Yosef and his brothers arrived, but at some point
prior to Paro's decree to kill the babies. Apparently, to Onkelos, Shevet
Yehuda was already dominant at this point. I don't recall any stories or
midrashim which illustrate that dominance, but we do know that Shevet Levi
was not enslaved, so it seems reasonable that other shevatim might also
have been notable in some way or another - long before Sinai and Arvos Moav.

And yet, it is only Onkelos who uses the word "Yehudi" here. The Torah (and
all other translators that I'm aware of) uses "Ivri/Hebrew" throughout. All
comments welcome.

Akiva Miller
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On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 09:08:58PM -0500, Meir Shinnar via Avodah wrote:
> Looking at my post, I wasn't sufficiently clear. I fully agree with
> Ilana that Mendelson is Orhtodox My point is that while Mendelson was
> considered Orthodox in hisletime, late on more and more people considered
> him trade -- and my guess is that most haredm or hared adjacent who know
> who Mendelson was would think of him as trafe.

> RMB first agrees with me then in a second post, disagrees.

Kind of. I think it is true that Mendelsohn the person belonged in
the O community, but whether or not I would consider his beliefs
Orthodox depends on whether they were more likely to evolve the way
they did or not.

I happen to think his seeds were far more likely to leed to Reform
than not.

I happen to have recently learned that RSRH thought that it wasn't what
Mendelssohn wrote that led to Reform, but what he didn't write; that it
was because his work remained uncompleted.

But in any case, my whole thesis is that "Orthodox" means a bunch
of things (and this list grows with each post):

1- having a place in the O community.

2- having beliefs that justify being observant.

3- having beliefs that conform to pesaqim about who the rest of us
   can accept with regrad to stam yeinam, shechitah, geirus... Which
   AFAIK, is a loose defintion of the 13 Iqarim. (Pace R Melech
   / Dr Marc Shapiro)
   Although most of us hold lequlah, that it's not only the beliefs
   that actually decide whose wine we can drink, it's still a
   component of the din. But look at the next bullet item.

4- not being an actual min, apiqoreis or kofeir because one's beliefs
   don't conform (#3, but for reasons that don't make one culpable
   for that lack of belief (Radaz)
   This definition includes the previous as a criterion, but shifts
   from discussing "one who has O beliefs" to one we can actually treat
   as O by adding culpability.

5- according to the Rambam and those who follow him to link olam haba
   to belief / knowledge rather than primarily being about ethics /
   intended behavior, having beliefs that cause one to reach gan eden.
   I think this is best left to (1) people who agree with the Rambam
   who are also (2) Hashem's accountants, or looking at themselves
   only.

And without paying attention to this distinction, I will seem to
contradict myself more often than I actually do. (Which still isn't 0,
which is how the list of possible referents of the word "Orthodox"
keeps on growing.)

> Nor do I personally think that believing heresy always makes one
> halachically someone we must treat like a min, apikoreis or kofer...

But it could be grounds for avoiding what they teach, anyway. After
all, you don't want to absorb such heresy.

As I said, I think that with 20:20 hindsight, we can see that much of
what Mendlsohn thought violate the second definition I ofered for being
Orthodox -- his beliefs did not sufficiently justify observance. And
that's why R evolved from his writings. Contrary to RSRH and R Ezriel
Hildesheimer's opinions of Moses Mendelssohn, with the advantage
of hindsight, I think the writing was on the wall.

That doesn't mean I think he was a min, apiqoreis or kofeir. Or even that
he believed something heretical -- although I haven't a position either
way on that one, not having read enough of his writings. But because he
didn't give sufficient logical reason to observe, he did end up crossing
what I called definition #2.

Getting back to the original claim, I think that Mendelssohn's position
that Judaism is a "revealed legilsation" consisting of law, behavior and
action, to the exclusion of "religion" and beliefs, directly led to R.
Because behaviors without justifying beliefs never stand unchanged.

And therefore even after all the thought this conversation has generated
(so far) I still think it's fair to say it is an idea promulgated
by Reformists.

Personal opinion, of course.

That said, I also still stand by Mendelsshon having a place in the
Jewish community, having beliefs that allow us to drink his wine
(never mind the question of culpability for not having such beliefs).

I will ignore the Rambam and beliefs necessary for olam haba because
frankly, I think it's a product of his Aristotilianism that no
significant part of our chevrah buys into anyway. (Ranking middos
and mentchlachkeit as secondary to yedi'ah might be something
many of us subconsciously do, but I don't think any of us actually
want to have those values.)

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life isn't about finding yourself.
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Life is about creating yourself.
Author: Widen Your Tent               - George Bernard Shaw
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 06:14:30AM +0200, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> Notes to a magid shiur -Thoughts?

>> I certainly agree with you that the advice that it's time to be selfish is
>> pretty poor advice, especially in times where there seems to be no lack of
>> individual selfishness, even within our community...

I would consider this an understatement. Selfishness is the primary
characteristic of the yeitzer hara, the keystone to everything the Torah
is there to counteract!

In Qunterus haChessed, R Dessler calls it "Koach haNetilah", whereas
the cornerstone of goodness is the Koach haNesinah.

Netilah is inherently gashmi. It comes from the survival instinct
and the resulting need to horde resources. It also gets in the way of
accepting emes. Only one who lives to be a nosein can possibly get past
misleading negi'os.

(I am now making a new edition of Qunterus haChessed, as a stand-alone
pamphlet with niqud, and another version that also has the Strive for
Truth adaptation side-by-side.)

R Shimon Shkop's whole measure of a soul is the number of people one
includes when saying "ani". Selfishness and a narrow ani is the most
coarse and least developed of souls. "Ukeshe'ani le'atzmi, mah ani?"
(RSS's use of Hillel, not mine. The broad inclusive soul is the subject of
"Im ein ani li, mi li?")

The one gets to R Shlomo Wolbe, who defined the Torah's message in terms
of building an Olam haYedidus.

He also talks about "frumkeit" as a cul-de-sac one can fall into when
one's observance accidentally becomes more about the pursuit of personal
holiness instead of avodas Hashem. Leshitaso, selfishness is a common
destroyer even of what looks like kosher and laudible religiosity!

I am leaving the rest of the post and Aliyah out, since I am still
integrating post Aliyah, and don't have mature thought-out things to
say on how it looks from my new perspective.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Good decisions come from experience;
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   Experience comes from bad decisions.
Author: Widen Your Tent                   - Djoha, from a Sepharadi fable
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF

Interesting thought from R? Steinman quoted by R? Rimon. The reason life
expectancy has gone up so much in Israel is that in pre-moshiach times we
will be fighting esav who excelled at respect for parents and so in order
to defeat him we must more excel in that mitzvah. The increased longevity
and the needs of aged parents give us this opportunity.
KT
Joel Tich
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> On Jan 26, 2026, at 5:12?AM, Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 09:08:58PM -0500, Meir Shinnar via Avodah wrote:
>> Looking at my post, I wasn't sufficiently clear. I fully agree with
>> Ilana that Mendelson is Orhtodox My point is that while Mendelson was
>> considered Orthodox in hisletime, late on more and more people considered
>> him trade -- and my guess is that most haredm or hared adjacent who know
>> who Mendelson was would think of him as trafe.
> 
>> RMB first agrees with me then in a second post, disagrees.
> RMB
> Kind of. I think it is true that Mendelsohn the person belonged in
> the O community, but whether or not I would consider his beliefs
> Orthodox depends on whether they were more likely to evolve the way
> they did or not.
> 
> I happen to think his seeds were far more likely to leed to Reform
> than not.
> Meir
So now whether you are Orthodox depends on your ability to predict the
future??  RMB is describing the modern issue of?cancel culture?, that he s
wiolingmto apply to [past major fgures ( as secular culture culture applies
to Washington and Jefferson)
> I happen to have recently learned that RSRH thought that it wasn't what
> Mendelssohn wrote that led to Reform, but what he didn't write; that it
> was because his work remained uncompleted.
> 
> But in any case, my whole thesis is that "Orthodox" means a bunch
> of things (and this list grows with each post):
> 
> 1- having a place in the O community.
> 
> 2- having beliefs that justify being observant.
> 
> 3- having beliefs that conform to pesaqim about who the rest of us
>   can accept with regrad to stam yeinam, shechitah, geirus... Which
>   AFAIK, is a loose defintion of the 13 Iqarim. (Pace R Melech
>   / Dr Marc Shapiro)

The Rumbam?s definition of ikkarim, with whatever flaws one may think they have, had two major features.
a) they were formulated as actual principles
b) They were precise. 
Now. I don?t know what a loose definition of the ikkraim means.  I thought
that Halacha (and surely Brisker halsach - but not just Brisk insists  on
precise definition, so a loose definition of ikkarim is not really
halachic.   People need to know what is expected of them


>   Although most of us hold lequlah, that it's not only the beliefs
>   that actually decide whose wine we can drink, it's still a
>   component of the din. But look at the next bullet item.
> 

> 4- not being an actual min, apiqoreis or kofeir because one's beliefs
>   don't conform (#3, but for reasons that don't make one culpable
>   for that lack of belief (Radaz)
>   This definition includes the previous as a criterion, but shifts
>   from discussing "one who has O beliefs" to one we can actually treat
>   as O by adding culpability.
So you agree that Orthodoxy does not mandate beliefs - it mandates that for some beliefs, other actions now become unorthodox
> 
> 5- according to the Rambam and those who follow him to link olam haba
>   to belief / knowledge rather than primarily being about ethics /
>   intended behavior, having beliefs that cause one to reach gan eden.
>   I think this is best left to (1) people who agree with the Rambam
>   who are also (2) Hashem's accountants, or looking at themselves
>   only.
> 
It is not merely whether one agrees or not with the Rambam.  It is
difficult to argue that for the vast majority of am yisrael, the Rambam?s
position does not violate your second bullet point - having beliefs that
justify being observant..  Of coursed, this was understood early on, and is
a major part of the Maimonodean controversy in the 13th century - and it
seems that logically, you would agree with the antiMaimonideans - that the
Rambam should be banned ? Of course, this was tried, and I would argue that
with all the problems the Rambam raises for the amcha, there seems fairly
universal agreement that the attempt to ban the Rambam wa wrong?.and it
seems peculiar (at the least) that one would, today, reraise those
arguments?

Mendelsohn?s admirers applied the phrase Mimoshe (Rambam) ad Moshe
(Mendelsohn), lo kam keMpshe - which I always thought was wild overpraise. 
However, RMB seems tosuggests that there is a similarity - just as wet
should ban Rambam we should ban Mendelsohn, as neither of them seem to have
beliefs that justify observance in the amcha?.
> And without paying attention to this distinction, I will seem to 
> contradict myself more often than I actually do. (Which still isn't 0,
> which is how the list of possible referents of the word "Orthodox"
> keeps on growing.)
> 
>> Nor do I personally think that believing heresy always makes one
>> halachically someone we must treat like a min, apikoreis or kofer...
> 
> But it could be grounds for avoiding what they teach, anyway. Afte
> all, you don't want to absorb such heresy.
> 
> As I said, I think that with 20:20 hindsight, we can see that much of
> what Mendlsohn thought violate the second definition I ofered for being
> Orthodox -- his beliefs did not sufficiently justify observance. And
> that's why R evolved from his writings. Contrary to RSRH and R Ezriel
> Hildesheimer's opinions of Moses Mendelssohn, with the advantage
> of hindsight, I think the writing was on the wall.

Again I would argue that Mendelsohn was not actually the basis of Reform. 
Mendelsohn argued that the essence of Judaism was practice - not theology. 
I am not aware that Reform agrees with that- they rejected both practice
and theology.  If anything, Reform values core ideological principles more
than practice (eg, Hermann Cohen?s work A Religion of Reason from the
Sources of Judaism) -just their core ideological principles are based on
what they call the ?prophetic tradition? rather than halal.

So yes, blamnng reform on Mendelssohn, and many Reform may even have
claimed to base themselves on Mendelsohn - given his stature in their
community, claiming to rely on him gave them intellectual credibility- but
the actual relationship is problematic.  They claimed him as their ?gadol?
something that we should be familiar with?..

Mendelsohn is one of the first to try to deal with the challenge that
?modern? thought - in his case Enlightenment ideology - posed to the
traditional community.	That challenges was also also thought necessary for
fuller economic participation of the Jews.  That challenge only increased ?
althoggh the nature of the challenge of modernity changed - and the options
were either to remain in a separated close community, find a way to
integrate being modern and halachic - or assimilate maintaining vestiges of
tradition that didn?t conflict with the zeitgeist.  We may disagree with
the particular formulation that Mendelssohn chose - kol hatchalot kahot -
but Mendelsohn is far more the basis for Rav Hirsch, even though he chose a
very different approach to deal with modernity




> 
> That doesn't mean I think he was a min, apiqoreis or kofeir. Or even that
> he believed something heretical -- although I haven't a position either
> way on that one, not having read enough of his writings. But because he
> didn't give sufficient logical reason to observe, he did end up crossing
> what I called definition #2.
> 
> Getting back to the original claim, I think that Mendelssohn's position
> that Judaism is a "revealed legilsation" consisting of law, behavior and
> action, to the exclusion of "religion" and beliefs, directly led to R.
> Because behaviors without justifying beliefs never stand unchanged.
> 
> And therefore even after all the thought this conversation has generated
> (so far) I still think it's fair to say it is an idea promulgated
> by Reformists.
> 
This is quite a leap.  Again, Reform is a rejection of the rabbinic
tradition of law far more than just  of theology. - they actually embrace
theology, just not traditional theology?.

> Personal opinion, of course.
> 
> That said, I also still stand by Mendelsshon having a place in the
> Jewish community, having beliefs that allow us to drink his wine
> (never mind the question of culpability for not having such beliefs).
> 
> I will ignore the Rambam and beliefs necessary for olam haba because
> frankly, I think it's a product of his Aristotilianism that no
> significant part of our chevrah buys into anyway. (Ranking middos
> and mentchlachkeit as secondary to yedi'ah might be something
> many of us subconsciously do, but I don't think any of us actually
> want to have those values.)
There are real Aristotelians today, but most of us think banning the Rambam
was (and is) a bad idea, even if it isn?t now popular, and would extend
that more generally - even to those who don?t have halachic weight of the
rRambam behind them

If one looks at modern Orthodox thinkers Yeshaya Leibovits comes closes to
Mendelsohn, in arguing that the real definition of emunah is not theology,
but doing mitzvot as avodat hashem.  This includes rejecting  any factual
claims (my father, who knew Yeshaya Leibovits in the 40s), used to cite
what was apparently a common phrase he used - lo yard hashm al har sinai
lelamed et bne Yisrael astrophysica?.and the fairly explicit corollary that
thiose who try to learn astrophysics, science, or even history from tanach
are misundertndig tanach ( the Kantian dichotomy between facts and values)

 I know of many members of the Orthodox community, including RW YU members,
 that in the 1960w and 1970s, when the conflict between Torah and madda was
 a big issue on college campuses, Yeshaya Leibowitz?s position, with the
 separation of the domains of truth of each, solved for them the conflict. 
 The conflict is still there, and we keep losing people to it, but much of
 community has learned to compartmentalize their lives without an
 ideological basis.  Rejection of Mendelsohn actually leads to the loss of
 of justification of mitzvot.  Eg, a la Slifkin, if being Orthodox required
 belief that th world was literally 5786 year old -you would lose many.

Meir Shinnar

Rashi uses the phrase kach shamati 94 times in shas. Many times he seems to
be setting up for disagreeing with the comment that proceeded this but
other times not. What exactly do you think he?s telegraphing when using
this phrase? What does it mean when he doesn?t use it?
KT
Joel Rich
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On Tue, Jan 27, 2026 at 09:05:35PM -0500, Meir Shinnar wrote:
> > I happen to think his seeds were far more likely to leed to Reform
> > than not.

> So now whether you are Orthodox depends on your ability to predict
> the future?? RMB is describing the modern issue of?cancel culture?,
> that he s wiolingmto apply to [past major fgures ( as secular culture
> culture applies to Washington and Jefferson)

You still write about the whole bundle as though I only offered one
definition.

According to the definition of O that labels beliefs rather than people
- and thus has nothing to do with "whether you are Orthodox" - and does
so by asking "do they justify being observant?" Mendelssohn's beliefs
do not. It may have been hard to tell at the time, but there were
those who suspected as much. And history proved them right, rather
than the optmists.

Mendelssohn believed that the law alone was revealed. Which means his
line of thought had no way of justifying the idea that even the law was
revealed -- because that too is a belief. And thus Reform.

He didn't have to see the future to know as much, although certainly
that ro'eh es hanolad would have helped.

> > 3- having beliefs that conform to pesaqim about who the rest of us
> >   can accept with regrad to stam yeinam, shechitah, geirus... Which
> >   AFAIK, is a loose defintion of the 13 Iqarim. (Pace R Melech
> >   / Dr Marc Shapiro)

> The Rumbam?s definition of ikkarim, with whatever flaws one may think they have, had two major features.

Nonsequitur. I write about a "loose definition", you reply about the
Rambam's definition. I am talking about requiring belief in something
that can be fit to Ani Maamin or Yigdal, the criteria the typical poseiq
would use for stam yeinam.

> a) they were formulated as actual principles
> b) They were precise. 

c) They would exclude Qabbalists, certainly nearly all of them since
the Ari.

But...

Since when does a din have to have well-defined limits to be a din?
Isn't that where a good deal of machloqesin comes from?

I don't propose this is a "has a place in the community" definition, but
a halachic one based on pesaq. I way of defining O in the sense of "we
only accept candidates for geirus who have O beliefs". Although perhaps
minyan and stam yeinam are better examples, since a BD leGeirus likely
has standards even they themselves don't consider strictly mandatory
lehalakhah.

> Now. I don?t know what a loose definition of the ikkraim means.  I
> thought that Halacha (and surely Brisker halsach - but not just Brisk
> insists  on precise definition, so a loose definition of ikkarim is
> not really halachic.   People need to know what is expected of them

I learned under R Dovid Lifshitz, who learned under R Shimon Shkop.
So don't ask me about "Brisker halakhah".

But in any case, it does seem that R Chaim Brisker knew that lomdus
was good for lehalakhah velo lemaaseh. He wasn't Brisk's poseiq, after
all - the dayan R SZ Regeus was. I had always assumed that's way.
(Or maybe R Rakeffet planted the idea in my head.)

> > 4- not being an actual min, apiqoreis or kofeir because one's beliefs
> >   don't conform (#3, but for reasons that don't make one culpable
> >   for that lack of belief (Radaz)
> >   This definition includes the previous as a criterion, but shifts
> >   from discussing "one who has O beliefs" to one we can actually treat
> >   as O by adding culpability.

> So you agree that Orthodoxy does not mandate beliefs - it mandates that for some beliefs, other actions now become unorthodox

I agree that this 4th definition states that the 3rd definition,
which categoriazed beliefs, can apply to people if the person has
the wrong beliefs for a particular reason.

There are mandatory beliefs by this definition, as apiqursus has meaning.
And in #3 I argued that the consensus appears to be "can be fit into
Yigdal or Ani Maamin", +/- gray area for posqim to disagree about.

Just as there is a halakhah not to wear shaatnez. But we don't exclude
people who accidentally don't wear shaatnez, or find shaatnez testing
to much of a hassle.

Similarly, believing heresy (apiqursus, meenus, or kefirah) doesn't
make one a heretic. It requires a certain lack of intellectual
honesty, to reframe the Radvaz to modern terminology. An honest
search that ends up in the wrong place gets you an O Jew who has
non-O ideas. And that last sentence, minuts the label "Orthodox"
is exactly the Radvaz.

There are no unrelated "other actions" in his discussion.

> > 5- according to the Rambam and those who follow him to link olam haba
> >   to belief / knowledge rather than primarily being about ethics /
> >   intended behavior, having beliefs that cause one to reach gan eden.
> >   I think this is best left to (1) people who agree with the Rambam
> >   who are also (2) Hashem's accountants, or looking at themselves
> >   only.

> It is not merely whether one agrees or not with the Rambam.  It is
> difficult to argue that for the vast majority of am yisrael, the
> Rambam?s position does not violate your second bullet point - having
> beliefs that justify being observant.

And that could be. My bullet points are inconsistent definitions in other
ways.

> Of coursed, this was understood early on, and is a major part of the
> Maimonodean controversy in the 13th century - and it seems that logically,
> you would agree with the antiMaimonideans - that the Rambam should be
> banned ...

Where do you get that?

I think the Rambam was objectively wrong, having built his entire path
of Avodas Hashem on a Socratic model of akrasia that has been replaced
by an awareness of the role of non-conscious processes. Right opinions
do play some role in the decisions we make and in our middos. But to
a far far greated extent, our middos and the decisions we want to make
without feeling guilty shape our opinions.

(And this runs through the entire Moreh -- 1:1-2 are about how the
eitz hadaas messed us up by forcing us to have to deal with more than
truth-vs-falsehood. Later in shaar 1 is his idea that it is Yediah that
causes olam haba. He has an overflow of yedi'ah from the Active Intellect
as the cause of nevu'ah. Hashgachah peratis and even a person's humanity
(!) is proportional to yedi'ah (3:18), etc... It is only when you get
to the last chapter do you learn that while perfecting middos is second
best to perfecting intellect, it is the perfect intellect that leads to
chesed, mishpat and tzedaqah.)

But that doesn't mean I think his idea was heretical. Or even unhelpful
for someone pre-Modern who wasn't as aware of the relationship beween
conscious and unconscious, or intellect, imagination and emotion.

And therefore his hashkafah doesn't offer us much, until you go
meta and talk less about its content and more about his striving
to unify Torah with other established wisdom.

I suggested that most of us would think that a person who was as good as
they were capable of but who doesn't have the right beliefs will still
get to heaven.

Whereas the Rambam would conclude that someone who has intellectual
challenges and the generous "nebich an apiqoreis" wouldn't.

And this is a different question than my other definitions of O,
like letting it be defined entirely sociologically, by asking who
do accepted halachic rulings classify as someone we must treat as
a heretic, etc... It is quite a distance from writing people out
in something like Cancel Culture.

> Again I would argue that Mendelsohn was not actually the basis of
> Reform. Mendelsohn argued that the essence of Judaism was practice -
> not theology...

Actually, he at times argued that pratice wasn't just the "essence"
but the entiretly of Judaism. In Jerusalem he says numerous times
that revelation didn't include belief.

I am just pointing out that this includes belief in revelation
itself, and thus undermines the authority of the law as G-d
given law.


As I said, his not insisting that Judaism believes in Torah min haShamayim
made R inevitable. Even if R Hersch, R Hildisheimer, and the Netziv -
or Mendelssohn himself - didn't notice that implication.

We argued in the past whether not believing in Torah miSinai as the
particular means of min haShamayim can still produce a worldview that
justifies O. I still think it cannot. That without dictation to Moshe,
derashos lack the intended authority, Rabbis are then assumed to have
had far more autonomy, and that was bound to produce C.


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man can aspire to spiritual-moral greatness
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   which is seldom fully achieved and easily lost
Author: Widen Your Tent      again. Fulfillment lies not in a final goal,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    but in an eternal striving for perfection. -RSRH


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