#rambam

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.

Just some Jewish history.

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Some videos... Love the Rambam more, right now *puts hand on my service weapon Mishnah Torah* that's an order!

Problem: I don't play soccer and do not plan to start strategizing for how that would work.

Solution: I'm going to cheat. Like, really cheat.

In one of my favourite books, Hexwood by Diana Wynne Jones, there's a machine with the role to run through given scenarios in simulated reality. Well, it's more like it's bending reality. An important point is that it can bend the universe and people's perception and memories if needed, but it doesn't really overrule a person's free will.

Basically, it's a machine that puts people into situations to watch what happens.

Anyway, that was a preface to how it was originally activated supposedly to create the ideal soccer team from historical figures such as King Arthur and Julius Caesar. But we later find out that the clerk who said that was lying, and he actually asked for hobbits on a grail quest. He was disappointed, however, because there were zero hobbits and he was demoted to almost an NPC.

In short, I'm going to try and create my ideal rabbinical questing party. As I said, I'm cheating. It's all in the spirit of the Bannus.

Anyway, the problem with that is that I barely ever played role-playing games. So I'll have to be a bit handwavey there as well. But I like RPs way better than soccer.

Rambam: healer. Also knows all the laws straight and back. He's a bit of a rationalist, which can be a downside, and the alternative is Ramban, whose more of a mystician. But I'm closer to Rambam in many ways, so I'll take him.

Resh Lakish: pretty much the only rabbi I could think of that could supply brawn. We're talking about a bunch of scholars, after all. Resh Lakish, however, is well acquainted with fighting physically.

Ra’aba: the Ibn Ezra could be a great addition, I think. A cutting tongue, expertise in poetry... I suppose in DnD he might be a bard. Sure, he claims to have bad luck all around, but I'm sure he can do well.

I really want to have someone from the Tosafot area, but I think my empty slot right now would need a wizard or something. While all rabbis could fit this to a degree, a Kabalah scholar might be preferable. And so:

Rabbi Yehudah haChasid: a prominent figure among Hassidut Ashkenaz, an ancient movement from the Tosafot era that's unrelated to the modern Hassidut. They have their own branch of Kabalah, I believe, which is mostly apparent in Shir haCavod (An‘im Zemirot) and Shir haYichud. Important to note that he's not actually related to the Churva synagogue, that's a long and somewhat odd story. Willhe get along with Rambam and Ra’aba? I hope so. Not sure how Resh Lakish will react to the whole deal.

Rambam ate and left no crumbs.

Can you please elaborate on this?

Rabbi Moses ben Maimonides (Rambam) is one of the most important Jewish scholars of all time. He composed a list of thirteen principles which he believed were mandatory beliefs for any Jew to have a share in the world-to-come (olam ha-ba).

This view is not universal to Judaism, but a poetic form of it is in the daily liturgy (Yigdal).

Reform Judaism is notable, among other things, for its specific and intentional rejection of some of the principles. Jumblr is largely Reform in its attitude towards Judaism, which may explain why Jumblr constantly acts like belief is an optional extra in Judaism and not a core component.