Dear Ido,



If you carefully read the words of rabbis throughout the course of history, from the time of the Mishnah and Talmud to this very day, you will see that their whole force and will is devoted to educating the people to obey rabbis’ orders, that is, to control of the believing public. This is the pillar upon which rest most halachot. If we reduce Maimonides’ 13 principles to one, we could say “Each person of Israel must obey the rabbis, listen to their voices, and follow their instructions; one who does not listen to the words of the rabbis will be excommunicated from the nation of Israel.”

Their unique and legitimate authority they drew from the Scriptural text through distorted interpretation: “According to the teaching which they give you and the judgment they tell you shall you do; stray not from that which they tell you, right or left” (Deuteronomy 17:11). According to the rabbis, one must listen to them even if they say the opposite of what is written in the Torah, even if they say right is left.

Now see something amazing: Throughout its writings and essays Daat Emet has brought rabbinic proofs that Halacha is determined based on human judgment, that the Holy Writ and Halacha are human creations.

We quote Maimonides, Nachmanides, Kazot HaShulchan, Rabbi Yom Tov Lippmann, and the Vilna Gaon, all of whom freely admit that Halacha is a human creation (see the portion of Shoftim and even so today’s rabbis lose their balance and come out fighting and scratching against Daat Emet!! This is because our conclusions differ from those of the rabbis whom we have mentioned. Those rabbis, though they admit that Chazal were human just like all other people, making errors and misleading, still instruct people to follow the rabbis and do not question their sole authority and reign, while Daat Emet, which demands each person take sole responsibility for his own life, rejects obedience to the rabbis; this is what infuriates them.

Similar to this is their reaction to the teachings of Prof. Leibowitz OBM, who fulfilled the Torah and the commandments and whose teaching involves the worship of G-d, yet who is considered an apostate!! This is because he removed the despicable mask of rabbinical legitimacy and thus questioned their rule and authority.



Here is a short selection of rabbis from the “Yeshiva” site explaining why Prof. Leibowitz is an apostate: “Leibowitz’s books are not Torah. More than that, they also include statements which oppose the basics of faith and the authority of Halacha and its arbiters.”



“[Leibowitz’s] view of Halachic arbiters is not respectful, to make an understatement, and he has caused great damage to the authority of Halacha in our days. Therefore there is no possibility of placing him amongst the ranks of Torah commentators” (Rabbi Yaakov Ariel).



“Apostates are defined as all those who denigrate scholars, and Yeshayahu Leibowitz ‘glorifies’ in this matter” (Rabbi Zalman Melamed).



This teaches you that the definition of apostate which makes the rabbinical institution fight battles, excommunicate, and ostracize is one who questions the institution itself. That is, it is not obedience to G-d which keeps sleep from the eyes of the rabbinical institution, but those who question the reign and sovereignty of the rabbis which drives the rabbis crazy and it is they whom the rabbis call a heretic and an apostate.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet

Dear Michael,



The end of your note shows that you have not understood our words. You wrote, ” The rabbis make sure that a situation of ‘each person does as he sees best’ is not created while safeguarding what is written in the Written and Oral Torah.” We have explicitly written, on the portion of Shoftim, that the Sages change the Written Torah and do not pretend to preserve the Written Torah. In other words, according to the Sages their interpretation of the Written Torah, even if it is in direct contradiction to what is written, is truly the Torah! They have not merely made a fence around the Torah, they even changed what is written. In their eyes the verse you cited, “each person does as he sees best,” means that a person must not do what he thinks best based on his own interpretation of the Scriptures; he must do what seems best in the eyes of the Sages and according to their understanding, even if it contradicts what is written in the Torah. Disobedience to the words of the rabbis is apostasy and nothing less.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet