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How one practices the religion ... is a personal choice.

Reader comment on item: El Al, "Goy" Airline?
in response to reader comment: Religious perspective

Submitted by Issac (United States), Dec 31, 2006 at 19:01

Yaakov- I see this discussion as completely relavant to the topic and do not feel a need to discuss this privately, and also I prefer not to give my E-mail address to someone from the internet. Nothing personal.

Judaism may take a holistic approach to understanding how body and soul combines to be the human being, but Israel is a secular state of Jews more than it is a religious state of Judaism and that makes religion subservient to the state and not vice versa.

When you say that one cannot avoid responsibility under [Jewish] law by denying the existence of the governing authority, which presumably is the Torah, you are imposing the requirement of practicing the rules of the religion on people that may not what to for whatever reason be it lack of knowledge, lack of will, or lack of being brought up in it.

How one practices the religion, if one decides to do so all, is a personal choice.

If Israel even were a state of Judaism as opposed to a state of Jews by blood, air travel from a religious perspective in general should not fall under a sabbatical prohibition because it would handicap the state if air travel were to be shut down for a day in mere virtue of restricting travel and also in case an emergency flight may have to be made. Shutting El Al down completely in particular on Shabbat would be foolish because sometimes there are emergences where El Al's jets have to be sent out.

As for dividing Jews into observant and non-observant, I'm sorry to have to disagree with you like this but you actually do and you seem to merely use semantics to cover it. What you say is that all Jews are incumbent to follow the Torah the way a standard orthodox person would, or else "That when the wicked sprouted up like grass and all who did iniquity flourished, it was only that they might be destroyed forevermore. as it says in 92:7. Do you feel that nonobservant jews or jews not observant as you are automatically wicked? Further, to take it further, do you feel that if a nonobservant jew gets hurt, it is the will of God for not being observant, as you seemed to have implied?

If so, such fundamentalist thinking that would be widespread in the year 1006, really has no place in the year 2006. Getting punished by God for not being a good person is one thing, but do you really think you'll be thunderbolted and sent to the bottom pits of Hell for having a Big Mac?

As for El Al security practices, the thing is a lot of religious people posting on this issue seemed to say that El Al's protection came primarily from following the Sabbath and not from any natural means ... however, let us look at something wikipedia says under its El Al article:

Following a strike that temporarily shut down the airline at the end of November 2006, El Al decided to fly some of their planes on Shabbat in order to get back on schedule. This led to a large Haredi uproar as well as calls to boycott the airline. El Al no longer has an official policy about flying on Shabbat, although they try to remain sensitive to the religious communities needs and abstain from flying on Shabbat unless there is an emergency. As of 26 December 2006, rumors surfaced about an agreement between the airline and the Haredim, but this has not been officially published.

In other words, the Haredi that knew nothing about running an airline, wanted to tell El AL about how to run an airline. This is like a patient telling a brain surgeon how to do surgery. To be in business, the airline needs to be on schedule but the Haredim did not care.

In the final analysis, it would appear that we should leave the talmudic analysis to the rabbis and everything else to the people trained to do it.

Submitting....

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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Reader comments (29) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
1Parasitic behaviour [34 words]Susya Bar DrorJul 15, 2011 05:24187417
Suggestion for El Al [42 words]Omar KajFeb 12, 2007 12:5176914
What is in islam which produces fanatics? [146 words]kalyanFeb 2, 2007 04:5975572
This is supposed to be 2007, not 1007, not 7, not 7 BC, etc. [588 words]IssacJan 16, 2007 22:5573221
Surrender [142 words]Ynna (tchkah)Jan 5, 2007 14:3071750
More Irritation [157 words]FriedmanJan 1, 2007 11:3071318
Unnecessary language [35 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 1, 2007 19:5271318
El Al GOY [2 words]steven LDec 26, 2006 12:2870611
...Professor [117 words]C FletcherDec 26, 2006 01:4970553
To C Fletcher [26 words]Ynna (Tchkah)Dec 28, 2006 22:4070553
why it would be wrong for El Al to fly on shabbes [112 words]Yaakov WatkinsDec 25, 2006 20:2670531
Don't listen to fundamentalists!!!! [498 words]IssacDec 30, 2006 20:0970531
Religious perspective [218 words]Yaakov WatkinsDec 30, 2006 21:3570531
How one practices the religion ... is a personal choice. [675 words]IssacDec 31, 2006 19:0170531
Religious perspective [526 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 1, 2007 18:1070531
Practicing the Religion [391 words]IssacJan 2, 2007 15:0570531
Please clarify. [416 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 2, 2007 16:4270531
Wrong for El Al [32 words]Charles R.L. PowerJan 4, 2007 16:0870531
I have an intellectual perogative because I have an intellect. [312 words]IssacJan 4, 2007 19:1170531
By the way [42 words]IssacJan 5, 2007 11:5970531
You've missed a couple of points [150 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 6, 2007 23:4470531
One more point [135 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 7, 2007 00:4170531
Do you want to know what is christianesque? [311 words]IssacJan 9, 2007 20:4070531
Whew. [326 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 10, 2007 19:0670531
God may have a special covenant with the Jewish people but .... [281 words]IssacJan 11, 2007 20:2670531
One more try. [206 words]Yaakov WatkinsJan 13, 2007 22:3070531
El Al [15 words]Yaakov WatkinsDec 25, 2006 20:1870530
Shabbos Goy [25 words]Melvin LavinDec 25, 2006 19:3070527
Non Sense [383 words]Ynna (Tchkah)Dec 19, 2006 21:4870049

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".

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