Reply To: Halachically okay to be liberal?

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#1698415
Avi K
Participant

CTL,
1. “I do not believe that the legislature should violate separation of powers by passing legislation to overrule decisions if the court.” What about the Eleventh and Sixteenth amendments?
2. Shmittah is not anti-capitalist. It is simply taking a year off to recharge one’s spiritual batteries. The land remains the property of its owner. As for the gifts to the poor (I assume those are the rest of your long list), in every case the poor must do some work for their gifts. Terumot and maaserot are compensation for engaging in spiritual
work. In fact, the Torah presumes private ownership and even prohibits favoring the poor in a court case where the law is with the rich person.

ER, Jews have been hurt more than helped by liberal values. Anti-discrimination laws prohibit preferring a fellow Jew in employment, have destroyed the separate institutions (clubs, neighborhoods, etc.) that kept non-observant Jews at least culturally Jewish and therefor kept the intermarriage rate low (even Jewish gangsters and communists almost never married out). Now even campus religious groups may not exclude non-believers. The laws that protect Sabbath observers (which, BTW, have more holes than Swiss cheese) can also be construed as conservative as they encourage religion.