A century-and-a-half ago, writing in his journal Jeschurun, Harav Samson Raphael Hirsch, zt”l, brilliantly responded to this challenge.
“Is not peace also a sacred value to the conscience of the Orthodox Jew? Is not shalom more important to him than any other consideration?” Rav Hirsch asks.
“Certainly not!” is his immediate response. “There are indeed circumstances under which I may, and indeed must, give up everything that is mine for the sake of preserving peace. There are circumstances under which I may, and indeed must, give up my property, my legal claims, and even refrain from making some injudicious remark in my social relationships, in order to preserve the peace, or to restore it.
But I cannot restrain myself with what is not mine but G-d’s, the Divinely uttered truth, the integrity of my life. My peace with G-d, my peace with my conscience cannot be for sale. I must not sacrifice these values afterwards. Only once you have assured for yourself the truth of G-d, and you have obtained clarity about the truth of your own way of life may you seek peace with your fellow men.” (From “Secession From the Community,” Collected Writings, Volume VI)
5 comments:
That was peace in Germany. They had the Reform up against them.
Not in this Hailigeh Shtoodt Lehkvood.
"My peace with G-d, my peace with my conscience"
To Rabbi Hirsch these were the same, On this blog the equality of these two is highly questionable, to say the least.
Queens Vaad on the same page as Deutscher Reform rabbiners.
cf R' Joel Shoinfeld's manifesto in the Queens Vaad propaganda magazine that kashrus "was never from the yesodos of Yiddishkeit" (kaviyochel).
European countries assering shechita started when they read anti-kashrus screeds of 1800s Reform rabbiners in Germany. The anteh-Semitten said with a straight face that the rabbiners themselves agree with us.
The Queens Vaad was co-certifying a coffee bar near Long Island Jewish Hospital with a Reform rabbiner until they got caught and took a lot of flak for it. The Queens Vaad actually tried justifying it until it turned into too much of a public relations nightmare! (The crazy contrarian OU mashgiach in Queens still defends the corrupt upmach ad hayom!)
Just because CCRC coundn't get his free fress at coffee bar near Long Island Jewish Hospital does not mean that the qveens vaad had a upmach with anyone else. If a hashgacha allows a product or gives a KOSHER (some one please exxplain to CCRC what that means - if its noigaiah) hashgacha on a product that has a Hallel certification does not add or deduct to the kashrus standard. Somhow if you lack a fress you can't comprehend such a pushuteh thing.
Well this is nothing new....
I see a child enveloped in flames. The bystanders are afraid; they do nothing, or else they are only trying to save the building. I see the child. I rush in. Should I first ask my neighbor whether he, too, sees the child? Should I worry whether, in my haste, I am jostling someone, or perhaps hindering the salvage of the building by running in? Perhaps I am causing a draft, fanning the fire?
“‘But,’ you might ask, ‘what if you are too late? What if the building collapses on top of the child in a roaring conflagration before you reach it?’ To this I reply: ‘Were I to be buried under it, I would at least have done my duty.’” (Rav Shamshon Raphael Hirsch, Letter Nineteen, The Nineteen Letters).
We are in this world for the purpose of bringing Geulah
Agree or Disagree?
There are many whose goals are ..very different
We have way too few working in whatever endeavor towards that aim
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