Re: ‘Know how to  answer the heretic (Jewish Tribune, Jan. 14, 2010)

I am beginning to find the comments of Rabbi  Benjamin Hecht frankly offensive. Chronically and repetitively so. Near the end of his column, he states: “It is not enough to know that you are right. It is not enough to know that the other opinion is, as a friend of  mine would describe it, idiotic.”

Should I remind Rabbi Hecht that it is this kind of message and attitude by the Roman Catholic church that led to the murderous Spanish and Italian inquisitions. And the burning of their own  Christian ‘heretics’!

Rabbi Hecht and hundreds of other rabbis spend a lifetime studying what many of my friends say is a vicious fairy tale and wish the rest of the world to swallow their inane conclusions.

What is more idiotic than a bunch of young men on the Sabbath waiting for a non-Jew to open the doors to a building so that they may sneak in? Or to  ask a non-Jew whether they would push a button on the elevator for them because it is the Sabbath!

It is no accident that the brightest minds of the last 300 years have been atheists with Jews leading the procession. To name but a very few: Einstein, Feynman, Sagan, Marx, Proust, Freud, Heine, to which we may add non-Jews such as Voltaire, Jefferson, Adams, Thomas Paine, two thirds of the founding fathers of the US, Goethe, Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, etc, etc, etc.

When you tolerate the likes of Rabbi Hecht, you do not have to look far on the world scene to see  the nefarious results of such fanaticism. To quote George Duhamel, a member of the French Academy and a physician who wrote much against the rise of Hitlerism: “I have too much respect for the idea of G-d, to hold him responsible for such an absurd world.” I wish Rabbi Hecht and his minions would remember these words when referring to those who may not care to form a minyan!

Robert Bendavid  
Toronto ON

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Rabbi Benjamin Hecht responds

The letter above is an apt challenge to me to meet the very standards expressed in my article. I would like to understand Mr. Bendavid’s thinking.

To be honest, I am somewhat puzzled for I have no idea how this letter is a response to what I wrote. I call for thought – the effort and determination to attempt to understand what an opponent is actually thinking – rather than just dismissing an opposing opinion in a summary fashion. In response, Mr. Bendavid’s letter, in a summary fashion, attacks my very faith system (which is not even the focus of my article). My article advises individuals to desist from describing those with whom they disagree as unintelligent; in return, I receive a letter from one who disagrees with me simply describing me as unintelligent. The question regarding this irony is not only why, but also how?

I can only think that the author of this letter has a problem with Orthodoxy and, knowing that I am an Orthodox rabbi, he chose to voice his frustrations and even anger in this letter, notwithstanding that his words do not really have a connection to my original article. He did choose a line to quote from the letter – which he interpreted as reflecting a stifling and dangerous dogmatism similar to that displayed by the Inquisition – upon which to build his attack, although the quoted line is actually challenging this very dogmatism. Perhaps this letter reflects the negative encounters the author has experienced with dogmatists within my faith system; sadly, dogmatists can be found within any system. He clearly demonstrates the harm that can be caused by dogmatism. The response, though, cannot be to meet dogmatism with further dogmatism.

In my article, I was precisely calling upon my co-religionists to try to understand the view of one who does not care to form a minyan rather than dismissing such a person in a summary fashion. I would ask Mr. Bendavid to show the same courtesy and not dismiss, in a similarly summary fashion, one who wishes to form a minyan. It requires sincere courage to be resolute and judicious in the furtherance of honest and true communication and understanding.