The Extremism Paradox

It is interesting that two opposite extremes often agree on the interpretations of things.

Following up on the last post... I basically said that the only difference between "mitzvah-killing" in Judaism and "mitzvah-killing" in Islam, from an Orthodox perspective, is our Torah is right and their Quran is wrong.

My goal was to shatter the illusion that Orthodox Judaism is somehow more humane or moderate than other religions.

Ironically what seems to be an extremist on the other side of the spectrum basically agrees with me on a comment on one of Rabbi Slikfin's recent posts

TorahJew said...

Rabbi Slifkin, I'm not sure I understand your discussion here. If one believes that the Torah is God given, then there is no question -- it's actually a simple argument. God gave us the Torah. The Torah tells us to wipe out the nation of Amalek. End of story. The reason why terrorists have no moral basis is that the Koran (which they use to justify the killing of non-Muslims) was not given MiSinai. Am I missing something here? Or there is some issue with the idea of Torah MiSinai? (emphasis mine) 

Both of us are trying to show that flaws of "justifying" the Torah but for different reasons. 

TorahJew because to him moderation is not a "Torah True" virtue and the only virtuous thing in the world is complete and unquestioning dedication to God without any other standard of morality. Trying to justify killing Amalek is extraneous and comparing divinely inspired Judaism to foolish Islam is ridiculous. 

I because of my dedication to moderation and a non-theocentric morality - and my claim that Orthodox Judaism does no represent that ideal.

It's interesting is we are both doing the same exact thing but for different ends! Claiming that the Torah does not represent any sort of humanistic or moderate ideal.

Historically a similar "alliance" happened when it came to the interpretation of the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim in the Middle Ages. The conservative zealots and the extreme rationalists, joined hands in a sense, both imputing to the Rambam very radical super-rationalistic ideas. The zealots to show what a shocking guy the Rambam really was, and the extreme rationalists in order to show that the Rambam was an extreme rationalist like them!

Just thought it was interesting ...