Wednesday, March 19, 2014

No Daas?

"Religious tolerance is not religious indifference. Tolerance means to value the right of another person to hold beliefs that you know are absolutely wrong."

Anon

Religious tolerance also means appreciating the multi-faceted truth of life and existence and not blindly dismissing other viewpoints as irrelevant and misguided. Anyone who has ever cracked open a gemara is witness to the religious tolerance exhibited by our Sages. In today's world, tolerance often streches until but not including those whose preferred mode of dress is dark suits and black fedoras. How unfortunate. There is so much to learn from them.

The Vilna Gaon was charedi. The Chofetz Chaim was charedi. Rav Moshe Feinstein was charedi. It is a good thing that they didn't live in our time because had they lived now they would definitely have been leaders of the charedi world, thus making them vulnerable to the venom spewed by many [even rabbis] in the so called MO camp. They, too, would have been accused of "not having daas".

Hashem yishmor.