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Thursday, 6 February 2020

Questions for rabbis on whether the Koran is Noahide-compliant

1) Which verse of the Koran infringes the Noahide laws?

2) Why is it impossible that God would first reveal the Torah to Jews first and then the Koran to gentiles?

3) Do rabbis see it as their role to create a Noahide religion for gentiles if it is interpreted that Maimonides said that no gentile shall be allowed to create a religion of their own?

4) Surely it is only when one's country has been invaded and conquered that one submits to the religion of the conqueror?

5)  It didn't end well for the Israelites when they forcibly converted the Edomites, did it?
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-edomites
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/herod

6)  Israel is the only nation in the world whose borders have been defined by the Torah. This means that Israel of all nations is not allowed to acquire empire, and this means Jews of all people are not permitted to conquer gentiles and forcibly convert them to Judaism, doesn't it?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel
https://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815

7) But let us hypothesise that Israel became a world superpower with a global empire, conquered every nation and imposed its religion and culture upon them. This means Jews out of all the people of the world will no longer retain their chosen status and will be submerged by the rest of humanity if everyone became Jewish. It would then be impossible for Israel to be light unto the nations if every nation were conquered by the Global Israeli Empire. Can it therefore not be surmised that the Noahide laws are only there as a minimum moral and civilisational standard for Jews to judge other nations while keeping only to its Torah-defined borders?

8) If Jews are claiming that Islam/the Koran is not Noahide-compliant, wouldn't they have to read it first and cite verses that they claim go against the Noahide laws to make good that claim? It is not convincing for Jews to claim "The late Rambam has decreed that no gentile shall create a religion for gentiles and all gentiles are to submit to a Jew-administered Noahide religion for gentiles propagated by Chabad."

https://wrldrels.org/2017/10/08/the-bnei-noah-children-of-noah/

1860s:  The idea of Noahidism as a Judaic religion for non-Jews was developed by Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Benamozegh#Religious_universalism

Benamozegh's works are noted for his free and uninhibited use of various non-Jewish religious sources, especially the New Testament and ancient pagan mythology. Benamozegh even considered the Gospels to be a highly valuable Jewish Midrash, comparable to the Talmudic Aggadah. He respected Jesus as a wise righteous Jew, but criticized the religious innovations of Paul.

In his theological works, Benamozegh suggested to explain the Christian dogmas of Trinity and Incarnation as an oversimplified and corrupt version of the Kabbalistic panentheistic doctrine of Divine emanations. While he disagreed with the Trinitarian Christian theology, he considered it, unlike most other Orthodox rabbis, an erroneous misunderstanding of subtle Kabbalistic doctrines and not a major deviation from monotheism. Moreover, he claimed that Christianity is too monotheistic in comparison with the Kabbalah which views all pagan deities in their essence as partial manifestations or faces of the Absolute. Similarly, Benamozegh criticized the Christian view of Jesus as incarnated God on monistic or panentheistic grounds. According to Benamozegh's Kabbalistic view, the entire world is an incarnation of Shechina, the feminine aspect of Divinity. He believed that Hinduism is closer in this respect to mystical Judaism than Christianity.

Benamozegh offered a novel mystical interpretation of Ludwig Feuerbach's atheistic philosophy. Feuerbach wrote that God is merely a product of human mind. Benamozegh explained that Feuerbach is essentially right; However, what people call God is a limited human perception of the apophatic Infinite Absolute.

Indeed, dualistic, panentheistic and highly complex views of the Godhead are common in the Kabbalistic literature. A number of known rabbis criticized Kabbalah for Gnostic-like dualistic views of God.

A particular interest was evolutionary theory and its universalist implications. Over time, Benamozegh came to view Darwin’s account of the common descent of all life as evidence in support of kabbalistic teachings, which he synthesized to offer a majestic vision of cosmic evolution, with radical implications for understanding the development of morality and religion itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elijah_Benamozegh#Cosmopolitanism_and_patriotism

Benamozegh considered himself, simultaneously, an Italian patriot and a cosmopolitan. He believed that authentic mystical core of the Jewish tradition, which he called "Hebraism" as opposed to more isolationist exoteric Judaism, is profoundly universal and capable of uniting all world religions and nations into one brotherly cosmopolitan network. While Benamozegh believed in the unique spiritual mission of the Jews, his idea of Jewish chosenness was far from narrow particularism. According to his worldview, the Jews are chosen to serve the humanity as a priestly people, by proving a common mystical ground that transcends the boundaries of the nations and religious traditions. He also emphasized the impact of other cultures on Judaism, starting from the ancient Egyptian paganism, as well as the great role of the proselytes in the Jewish history. Unlike some exclusivist Kabbalists, Benamozegh believed that Kabbalah is a universal theology that unites all human beings and views them as equals. 
At the same time, Benamozegh was a staunch Italian patriot. He even wrote a daring formulation, based on the Jewish declaration of faith: O Israelites, that you will always love Italy, that you will love her with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. Apparently, according to his panentheistic philosophy, Benamozegh viewed the Italian soil as a specially beloved expression of the Shechina.

9)  Who has more moral and intellectual authority in the opinion of humanity as a whole and not just Jews alone?

a) The originator of the Koran (believed by Muslims to be the Abrahamic God Himself)

b) A deceased Jewish sage who called Muhammad a lunatic

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism%27s_views_on_Muhammad

Maimonides referred to Muhammad as a false prophet and an insane man. In his Epistle to Yemen he wrote "After [Jesus] arose the Madman who emulated his precursor [Jesus], since he paved the way for him. But he added the further objective of procuring rule and submission [talb al-mulk; pursuit of sovereignty] and he invented what was well known [Islam]." 
In his authoritative work of law the Mishneh Torah (Hilkhot Melakhim 11:10–12), Maimonides indicated that nevertheless Muhammad was part of God's plan of preparing the world for the coming of the Jewish Messiah: "All those words of Jesus of Nazareth and of this Ishmaelite [i.e., Muhammad] who arose after him are only to make straight the path for the messianic king and to prepare the whole world to serve the Lord together. As it is said: 'For then I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech so that all of them shall call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord' (Zephaniah 3:9).


10)  Wouldn't the quickest way for Jews to "Noahidise" the world and be the light unto the nations as God had chosen them to be be for them to declare Christianity kaput - because it is not only Noahide-compliant but idolatrous and blasphemous to a supreme degree - but Islam to more than satisfy the minimum moral standards of the Noahide laws?

11) Before the moral authority of Jews is acknowledged, wouldn't Israel itself have to be at least Noahide-compliant?

12) In order to be at least Noahide-compliant, wouldn't Israel itself have to be a theocracy?

13) Isn't Israel really just a colonial outpost of the American Empire that is infamous for promoting "globohomo" and turning the global village into Sodom and Gomorrah doubtless attracting the same punishment, if God exists and intends to punish us?

14) If Israel were to become a theocracy in order to be in good standing with God, wouldn't a Torah-theocracy be too harsh on the many secular Jews currently living there?

15) Wouldn't you agree that a Koranic theocracy (which is really a legal system designed to accommodate atheists to polytheists because it guarantees freedom of belief as the First Amendment does according to quran.com/2/256) would be the preferred option of the majority of Israelis, if they had to choose between a Torah theocracy and a Koran theocracy and no other option is on the table?

16) It has been said that Islam is "Judaism Lite". We know that what is halal is not kosher, but what is kosher is halal. If it is indeed the case that Islam is "Judaism Lite", then sharia ought to be just a walk in the park for observant Jews. It is well known that the burden of being Jewish is greater than that of being Muslim, wouldn't you agree?

17)  The Koran acknowledges the borders of Greater Israel - whose total population is estimated to be 100 million - as defined in the Torah. If such a thing were to be possible in the foreseeable future, it would have to be governed by Koranic principles rather than Torah principles, wouldn't you agree?

https://www.prb.org/israel-demography/

In 2050, the UN Western Asia region will have a population of 405 million (with Israel representing 3 percent of the population of that region) and Iran should have just under 100 million people.

18)  If there is to be a chance of a Greater Israel in the foreseeable future, then the Third Temple cannot be built and the Al Aqsa Mosque has to stay in situ, wouldn't you agree?

19)  If God exists and arranged matters so that the Al Aqsa Mosque prevents the building of the Third Temple, could it not be argued that God intends for Israel to take cognisance of the possibility that the Koran represents God's revelation to gentiles since the Torah represents instructions for Jews only?

20) Since Temple Judaism resulted in the expulsion of Jews from Israel, would you not agree that all priesthoods are corruptible? (The Catholic and Anglican Churches are excellent examples of clerical corruption.)

21) Islam operates through following God's laws in the Koran and in Islam it is the judiciary that would be the closest thing to a priesthood. Since law operates openly and is subject to adversarial argument and legal decisions are subject to appeal, even a potentially corruptible judiciary would be more open to challenge and scrutiny. A slim-line Koranic "theocracy lite" that dispenses with the trouble of Jews having to re-establish a priesthood for their Third Temple and the inevitable disputes amongst Jews about how that should done would be a blessing in disguise, would it not?

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