This is a cross post by the e.e.cummings of The Spittoon: bananabrain
oh, this is just too feckin’ much. i’ve long been aware of the ideological excesses of rabbi yitzhak ginsburgh, but his disciple rabbi yitzhak shapiro of the west bank settlement of yitzhar has really done it this time. according to the left-leaning israeli daily ha-aretz:
Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book “The King’s Torah” that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.
Shapiro based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he adds his opinions and beliefs. “It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments – because we care about the commandments – there is nothing wrong with the murder.”
basically, if this is true, then it’s one of the most disgusting things i have ever heard, a true desecration of the Divine Name.
according to the failedmessiah.com blog, both ginsburgh and possibly shapiro himself are members of chabad, an organisation that, generally speaking, i have a lot of time for because they are prepared to go that extra mile on behalf of jews everywhere and help in ways that others aren’t, but one which i keep at distinctly arm’s length from because, well, to put it bluntly, i am not sure i trust their theology. i wonder if this, after the scandal of the last rebbe’s elevation to messiahship, will finally prove to be the undoing of this behemoth of outreach?
anyway, i’m going to be asking some very pointed questions of any chabad rabbi i encounter any time soon. stuff like this, quite apart from being the sort of thing that laid the groundwork for the murder of yitzhak rabin and presumably provides spiritual sustenance for the likes of jack teitel, undermines the sort of sensible, humane, rational, tolerant and open-minded position that ought to be halakhically mandatory.
it is, quite simply, the foundation stone of terrorism.