Religion & Beliefs
Noah vs Cousin Moishe, Part III
By Jewcy Staff / June 15, 2009
This is the third installment in the saga of Noah, a secular Jew who is happily engaged to a non-Jewish woman, and his baal teshuvah cousin Moishe. Moishe emailed Noah to express his displeasure with Noah’s choice of a bride, and Noah wrote back basically telling his cousin to go play in traffic.. Now, Moishe has emailed his own mother ("Mother") and Noah’s mom Rachel, hoping to pull them into his battle for Noah’s eternal soul.As before, not a single word or misspelled word has been changed.
Subject: hi HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
This is a special birthday message to you to give you a very great present- namely coaching on this very important matter to give it the proper focus and energy and intention it deserves!! I have timed things perfectly as I have now successfully ’tilled the soil’ sufficient enough for you each to share your true feelings with Noah. The truth is before one sews seeds one must take a perfectly goo dpeice of land and rip it up quite a bit and so now the ground is soft for you to plant our delicate seed Rachel, please do so with care. Rachel, I recommend, especially after seeing his having written that you could care less and you don’t believe in G-d, that you tell him the truth about how it saddens you, and weakens you, and that you don’t feel good at all about supporting the endeavor in any way and that you were only merely resigned to having to say ‘what can I do’ Mother, I recommend you tell Noah the truth about your loss, my lack of a Father, your lack of a husband and that you admit that had your parents or grandparents been clear to you about not supporting you to go through with it, that you likely would not have as you respected your parents and what they told you. Furthermore, I recommend you get clarification as to what Noah meant when he made the claim as to the ‘crazy women that raised me’ what he meant by that.
And lastly, you should both be 100% crystal clear that nothing I said was my belief, it is rather your beliefs that are fighting against the information I’ve presented. The fact is that I’ve said nothing out-of line with traditonal torah precepts. I am comanded to rebuke him and warn him and ot do everything within my power to make a clear case for what is happening. A JEW IS FORBIDDEN TO MARRY A GOY and this is not personal THE ARE CONSEQUENCES TO SO-CALLED MARRYING A GOY many of which I’ve articulated in the straight-forward and unflattering manner that the situation deserves. THERE IS A SOURCE TO ONES TAKING AN ACTION THAT THEY SHOULD NOT and I’ve attempted to highlight it, in attempt to bridge the gap as quickly as possible to stimulate a quick & effective response As an additional statement: HE SHOULD BE THOUGHT OF AS THE ONE WITH THE PROBLEM NOT ME he is disregarding his lineage, his Torah, his G-d, in favor of his limited human intelect (combined with his lack of focused study in this area) and NOE OF YOU HAVE SPENT TIME UNDERSTANDING THIS AREA and so therefore your response is understandable nevertheless I ENCOURAGE YOU TO GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR TRUE FEELINGS WHICH I ASSERT OCCUR FOR YOU AS A LITTLE VOICE THAT IS QUIETER THAT THE LOUDER ONE WHICH SAYS "OH WELL, IF HE’S HAPPY" – THE QUIETER VOICE THAT SAYS "WHAT A SHAME" you each had the privilidge of being bon Jewish and to disregard this last statement I made would be to say that you would be happy being stripped of your being Jewish, for however tenuous your link or understanding and as well, go backwards and strip all Jewishness out of your life entirely and simply said… you could’nt do it and so I encourage you to drop your modern eglaitarian philosophies, clal a spade a spade, admit your loss and the lack of the best thing for Noah, the cheapness of t substitute and eally AND I’M TALKING TO YOU RACHEL, REALY, You can now be honest with him. And you should not le this opportunity pass without BEING HONEST WITH HIM. THERE IS MORE TO SAY THAT "I’F YOUR HAPPY, I’M HAPPY’ The fact is that’s all you’ve been empowered to say, because of your own lack or fucused study and understanding in this area (both of your true pesonal feelings and Jewsih Law) Noah is a gift and could be a great Jewish man if he does not go through with this. if he goes through with this he’ll be at best part of the assimilated masses and at worst divorced, etc. WE ARE TAUGHT TO TREAT SUCH AN EVEN AS A FUNERAL AND SAYING THAT SHOULD HAVE YOU PONDER WHAT OUR SAGES MEANT BY THAT. YOU SHOUD PONDER – WOW WHAT ABOUT THIS IS LIKE A FUNERAL, HMMM AND REALLY LOOK AND REALLY FEEL AND REALLY LET IN IN. The lie would be, if at the "wedding" you said "we acecpt you into our family, etc." THAT IS A LIE!!! She is not in your family, she is not Jewish , she will raise non-Jewish children and more appopriately you should not say that and let her say "i accept you into my family" because that’s whats going on. Rachel, be bold and tell the truth Mom, be bold and real as well Love, Moishe
POST A COMMENT
Here is what intermarriage can lead to. Why put your family through it?
http://www.smh.com.au/national/father-wins-right-to-stop-children-taking-part-in-jewish-ceremonies-20100706-zz47.html
It’s actually easy. If you care about your children being Jewish then marry a Jew. That means, don’t date non-Jews. If you don’t care about your children – if being Jewish means nothing to you – then do whatever you want.
The question is: Why would you not care about being Jewish?
See here for an interesting piece: http://galusaustralis.com/2010/07/3257/jewish-engagement-–-that’s-the-point/
There may (or, I suppose, there may not) be good reasons for a Jew to insist on only marrying another Jew. However, to set "Cousin Moishe" up as the spokesman for this view is to make it ridiculous. Moishe is a fruit-cake, and (as the first response makes clear) he was a fruit-cake, and regarded as such, well before he found Orthodox Judaism. I’m pretty sure that there are Baptist Moishes, atheist Moishes and Muslim Moishes.
To the extent that the point here is to seriously discuss the question of intermarriage, I’m all for it– there are arguments both ways. This piece had some comedic value, but shed little or no light on the subject.
Z: it’s the Ashrei prayer, except instead "prosperous is the man who has Adonai as his god", he’s made it "the man who has the market as his god".
. . . to Moishe say more about themselves than about him.
Noah tells Moishe what a joke he is. A silly little girl wants Moishe to die (play in traffic). Charming.
And an idiot claims that Moishe is the antithesis of a Jew because, "Judaism is open to all thoughts, to all people, to all ways of life. Jews have the right to believe what they want to believe, and to interpret the Torah and the Talmud in the way that it is appropriate for their own life and culture and experiences. They are the "chosen" people, and that means that they are free to ‘choose.’"
Wow, that ‘s maybe the best summary of mindless moral and cultural relativism I’ve ever heard. Being Jewish means anything goes. Whoopie! As for "chosen people," this nitwit has no more idea of what the term means than Moishe. Chosen people means that G_d has chosen the Jews to carry His message, through scripture, but especially though the example of lives lived in accordance with Torah. Like with Moses, being chosen is more of a burden than a privilege. Of course, this Orthodox view may not be agreeable to certain precious adolescents, but that’s what "chosen people" means.
Actually what’s going on here is that Jewcy and its readership and Noah are spazzing out over an anachronistic old Jew’s desperate concern for the soul of his cousin. He reminds me of what Christian fundies are earnestly trying to do – buttonholing others to save them from damnation. Of course, they were saving souls back in the Middle Ages when they burned folks at the stake, in order to purge some imagine possession by the devil. But Moishe sounds far from that sort.
Moishe is wild-eyed and delusional and in need of the charity the idiot above opines about. On the other hand Moishe’s adversaries here are just plain mean. They remind me of figures from Tolstoy – glib, effete, over-refined courtiers reacting with amused revulsion to the old crone who wags her finger at them, promising hellfire for their lictetiousness. Of course, the old crone is batty, but the courtiers are arrogant and stupid.
Moishe needs to go play in traffic. Maybe there’s a Mack truck looking for a playpal. Moishe needs to get a life!!
For those of us who went to crappy hebrew schools, or none at all, pls. translate.
–Z
Right-wing Libertarian Ashrei (short version)
Shatz: “Ashrei yoshvei veitecha.”Kehilah: “Od y’hal’lucha selah.”Shatz: “Ashrei ha’am shekacah lo.”Kehialh: “Ashrei ha’am she’ Ha-Shuk elohav.”
I love how he seems to think everything’s going according to plan. Hilarious!
–Z
The letter to Noah was bad enough, but at least Moishe didn’t try to tell Noah that he (Noah) didn’t know his own feelings. But now he’s telling "Mother" and Rachel that they don’t know their own feelings on this matter, and that they should admit they oppose the intermarriage? One can only wonder what will happen when "Mother" and Rachel tell Moishe he’s put words in their mouth.
Wanna post your own comments? Gotta log in first!