To this post.
R' Ehrman,
I had to respond. Put back up the other video it was at least not total apikorsus.
Forget whether the merits of ..... should be debated or not. What this guy is saying is either apirkorsus or megale panim ba-Torah she-lo ki-halacha.
I never learned any books from him and don't know what he says, but at least the way this guy presents this Hashkafa it is a serious distortion of Torah.
According to him we should remove Makkos and Sanhedrin from Shas. "How could we ever" give someone malkus or misas beis din?
Pinchas must have been a failure C'V although Halacha Moshe Misinai says kinayim pogim bo, "how could he"?
Avraham Avinu C'V failed at the Akeida, of course Hashem said to take Yitzchak up as an Olah "but how could he"? If his love didn't override the will of G-d, then he must have failed.
I agree on certain circumstances the larger picture needs to be taken into account and sometime the letter of the law shouldn't be applied, but that is closer to a HOROAS SHAAH, and doesn't state that the underlying principle of the Halacha is flawed and should be overriden as a rule and hashkafa. If anything this is the exact reason (one of) why the second Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, it says because of the humility of R' Zecharya ben Avkulmus. If Chazal would have killed Bar Kamtza then there would have been no destruction, what did he do he just put a "mum bekadshim". Apparently this guy doesn't realize that the Esav in a shtreimel doesn't always spew hate, sometimes he spews love as well.
This is a dangerous video to leave up as people are very vulnerable to this thinking and his Torah. I would strongly urge you to make a more detailed refutation of his points (not just the issue of speaking about so and so) or take it down, it just spreads more of this twisted thinking.
Shabbat Shalom
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I agree. So I took it down.
Any other thoughts?
