#misnah

Anon is talking about these posts:

4/21/26: I argue that the IDF soldier who smashed a Lebanese Christian icon got off far too light

4/28/26: Anon claims the torah explicitly mandates smashing other peoples' idols

5/12/26: Anon claims that Jews criticizing this behavior are "self-flagellating"

Summary of my position: Destroying other peoples' religious icons violates both Jewish values and Jewish law while doing enormous damage to Israel and harming relations with the Christians who seek to be allies to Israel.

The argument that such barbarism is sanctioned by our texts isn't just false, but a vulgar, fundamentalist excuse for barbarism disguised as piety. Even if the law wasn't clear, anyone who knows the history of desecrations experienced by Am Yisrael should recognize the barbarism when they see it.

It's an ISIS move, it's a Taliban move, and it should be beneath Am Yisrael.

Let's move on to today's belligerently ignorant asshat:

Is it un-Jewish that religious Jews pray every day for the destruction of idols?

TLDR: Anon isn't arguing with me. They're arguing with Maimonides.

The people who wrote the Aleinu are the exact same people who wrote the laws saying don't smash those statues.

The Sages weren't hypocrites. They understood the difference between eschatological hope and a legal permit.

The Aleinu is a prayer for a theological shift, a world where the spirit of idolatry vanishes because the truth of the Divine is manifest. It asks God to remove the abominations.

It is not a Search and Destroy warrant for a human dickhead with a hammer and a sick antipathy for civilization.

Maimonides is explicit on this in the Mishneh Torah, Laws of Idolatry 7:1 - the obligation to destroy idols applies only in the Land of Israel. In the diaspora, there is no obligation to seek them out and destroy them. That's not a loophole. That's the law.

(We covered this before, but Anon isn't the type to do any reading before asserting a falsehood - 🤷‍♂️ - )

Avodas Kochavim 7:1 There is a Torah obligation to destroy idols, their accessories, and everything that is made for their service, as per Deuteronomy 12:2 (“You must surely destroy all the places where the nations... served their idols”) and Deuteronomy 7:5 (“…you shall tear down their altars”). In Israel, one is required to seek out idolatry until it is eradicated from the land. Outside of Israel, we need not actively look for it. However, upon conquering a place, we must destroy the idols found there. This is based on Deuteronomy 12:3: “You shall destroy their name from this place,” meaning Israel. This teaches us that idols must only be sought out in Israel, not elsewhere. Avodas Kochavim 7:2 We are not permitted to benefit from idols, their accessories, offerings made to them, or anything else made for their service as per Deuteronomy 7:26, “Do not bring an abomination into your home.” Anyone who derives benefit from these things receives two sets of lashes: one for violating the prohibition of “Do not bring an abomination...” and a second for violating the prohibition of “Let nothing of the condemned property remain in your possession” (Deuteronomy 13:18).

Darchei shalom is a Rabbinic legal principle rooted in Mishnah Gittin 5:8, which requires Jews to extend basic civil obligations to non-Jewish neighbors as a positive ethical ideal, not merely as self-protection.

Religious Jews also pray every day for the restoration of animal sacrifices - but if I start grilling a goat in Times Square, I'm not being super duper Jewish - I'm being a lunatic who doesn't understand how law works.

Praying for a perfected world is Jewish.

Taking one line from a prayer, flattening 2,000 years of jurisprudence, and using it to justify vandalism and desecration of peoples explicitly ruled not to be pagans is willful illiteracy, religious apathy, cultural ignorance, and ethical bankruptcy.

If you want to argue with Maimonides, Anon, go right ahead. It makes you look like an idiot, but you do you.