Liberals have often not spent time learning Torah. Many have good intentions, but have not absorbed a Torah framework.
The Torah  has laws that are related to how to run a society. And it has laws that deal with personal morality. The parts of the Torah which deal with how to run a society are overwhelmingly conservative and correspond exactly with the USA Republican conservatives. Family values, personal responsibility, limited government. Civil damages are when actual damage has been caused. Not imaginary slights to one's feelings. See Bava Kama in detail.

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  c. willie 

  
  

  Limited government?

  Tell foreigners you come in peace. If they respond peacefully and welcome you, enslave them. If they don't, kill all the males, enslave the women and children, take everything valuable for yourself, and feast on it as God's gift to you.

  Deut 20:11
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    Avraham rosenblum  

    
    

    Limited government as meaning government subject to Torah. I mean inside of Israel the government of kings did not have authority beyond what the Torah gives them explicitly. As for war on nations that are idolaters, you are right that the Torah is harsh. On nations that are not idolaters however, one is not allowed to make war. But the harshness of the Torah towards idolators is not limited to foreign nations. It is a law that the Torah imposes on Jews also. No one is exempt. So if you take offense the fact that the Torah does not like idolaters, well, stand in line and take a number.

    
    

    
    
    

     

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  c. willie  • 20 minutes ago

  
  

  Personal responsibility?

  Engage in money-lending and usury so Jews can control the world.

  Deut 28:13

  
  

  
  
  

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    Avraham rosenblum  c. willie • 15 minutes ago

    
    

    Usury was the only profession open to Jews in the Middle Ages. We were not allowed to own land. And as far as I know this money lending activity fulfilled an important function during the Middle Ages. When Kings and princess needed money where else could they go to? The peasants? Other kings? The church forbid one Christian from loaning money at interest to another Christian. Jews fulfilled an important role in the building of European Civilization.› 

    
    
    
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      c. willie  • 12 minutes ago

      
      

      This commandment is from Mosaic law, long before the Jews showed up in Europe. › 

      
      
      
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        Avraham rosenblum  c. willie• 6 minutes ago

        
        

        Right. The Torah allows Jews to loan to gentiles at interest.
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  c. willie 

  
  

  Family values?

  If a new husband accuses his wife of not being a virgin, and her parents can not provide hard evidence otherwise, the new bride must be taken to the doorway of her dad's house and men from the neighborhood throw rocks at her until she is dead.

  Deut 22:20
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    Avraham rosenblum  c. willie • 21 minutes ago

    
    

    See Ketubot in detail. especially page 2. The basic thing to know is that the death penalty comes only with a two witnesses and a married woman. There is a period between ארוסין and נישואין which is not done anymore.But what makes her married is the ארוסין. and this is what the Torah is talking about in that case. So if she is in fact married and there were two witnesses then there is the death penalty. Not otherwise. Plus there has to be a warning: If you do such and such then this will be the penalty right before the actual act.
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      c. willie  • 14 minutes ago

      
      

      "But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her father's house: so shalt thou put evil away from among you."

      Deut 22:20 KJV

      
      
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        Avraham rosenblum  c. willie• 2 minutes ago

        
        

        See Ketubot. It is fundamental in Torah that there is no death penalty except under the circumstances I stated above. How to deal with these verses is by taking note that the conditions for the death penalty are stated elsewhere in deuteronomy. So when we have a seeming contradiction we have to solve it. We can't just go by one verse alone. And the rules about two witnesses is hard and fast. plus the need for the Miranda warnings.

        
        

        
        
        

         

After that Willie had a few more comments that I thought it would be best not to reply to because they seemed kind of negative.

But in fact the when and how of wars against idolatry is not a subject I know much about. Mainly the idea of the Torah is that idolatry is a bad thing. When gentiles do not do idolatry, then things are different. Then they are just people.

Glenn Gould

my chavruta suggested this Beethoven piece
The pianist is Glenn Gould
I mean the cello sonata 53:10

Personally I am more of  Mozart person. But give credit where credit is due.

(1) Even if the excommunication of the Gra still has halachic validity still there are several points to consider.  I suggest reading the actual book that contains the original wording of the excommunication and studying the laws of חרם in the Rambam Tur and Shulchan Aruch.
(2) The fact that the excommunication of the Gra is ignored is no proof. I have seen enough times that even real Torah scholars will back off any issue that involves internal politics inside the Jewsih world. They for some strange reason leave that to people that really have no idea of what the Torah is about.





Appendix:



Could the excommunication of the Gra still be valid?
This seems like ridiculous question. Can it be possible  for anyone to think they know halachah better than the Gra? Or to imagine he would make  ban that would not have halachic validity? It seems absurd on the face of it.
But as strange as it seems, there are still plenty of people that ignore it, and even think they know ha;acha better than the Gra.

  We do see in Shulchan Aruch that a חרם may go on succeeding generations. [Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 207 ]. And it also does not need actual testimony in beit din.
[This is in answer to a Professor at Hebrew University who brought up the question about putting into חרם a whole group without actually summoning them to court. See the Shulchan Aruch itself which deals with this. And as for the fact of putting a whole group into חרם, this also is dealt with right there concerning the group of the Shatz. No one had any objections that.]


If so, this would explain a lot.


Among the laws about excommunication are that one is not allowed to learn or teach Torah.
So it would make sense that the first thing that happens is people lose the desire to learn Torah unless it is for some monetary or power motivation.

The questions arose in relation to the sect of the Shatz. There I don't know of there ever was a חרם. But the question was not if it would have validity. Rather if it would make people go away from Torah. That is, you have a person who is borderline, and you put him into חרם. He has no community or friends, so what do you expect him to do? This argument is not used in relation to an actual sect or cult. There we are not afraid of what the person may do. We put on the חרם anyway. It is only  towards a person that has done something that would normally require a חרם, but we are extra careful because of this consideration.

But what makes one a part of a cult that is under the excommunication? I think it has to be conscious identification.

i35 Dedicated to the God of my father and mother   [I35 in midi]

As great as my parents were, they were not born into a vacuum. They received their values  from their parents  who had a definite Musar Jewish Ethics point of view.

So to get what exactly made my parents as great and amazing as they were you should  learn the Old Testament and the basic set of Musar Jewish ethics books to get a basic idea.

Jewish Ethics is mainly medieval. Orchot Tzadikim (The Paths of the Righteous) and Duties of the Hearts (חובות לבבות) Sefer haYashar. Why only the Middle Ages? I really don't know. But after the time of the Talmud itself the age of the best scholarship was the Medieval period.
There was a movement to revive the learning of Musar by Israel Salanter. And this movement has tricked along for some time but I should like to see it turn into a flowing river.

As a family, we were  Reform Jews. We did all the regular Reform Judaism things. We went sailing and skiing, and visited Israel, and learned Torah, and kept the mitzvot to the best of our ability, but did not turn mitzvot into a means of making a living or making money. But I must mention that my parents were a hard act to follow. I think in some way each one of us three brothers took one specific area of the values of my parents and developed that --but not with the balance that my parents had.
Torah and Judaism were important to my parents, and that area of value I went into with a fervor.
But as for the areas of value of being self reliant and being a "mensch" (decent moral, ethical human being) my brothers did a lot better with than I.


I think Reform however even then was going in directions that my parents recognized were not exactly like Torah

The faith of the Torah is Monotheism-not Pantheism. הבעיה עם פנתאיזם היא זה: הטבע הוא לא אלוהים. ואלוהים הוא לא טבע.אין לו חומר. הוא לא עשוי משום חומר, ולכן שום דבר לא יכול להיות עשוי מהחומר שלו.

The problem with Pantheism is this: Nature isn't God. And God is not Nature. He is the creator of nature. He has no family relationship with humans. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans or a tzadik and the Divine.


 The faith of the Torah is Monotheism-not Pantheism.
 God transcends nature. As the sovereign of all realms, God isn't by nature bound to any particular realm. Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Torah. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's completely different. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the divine

That is that God created the world something from nothing-not from his own substance. He has no substance. He is not made out of anything and therefore nothing can be made of his substance. And he is separate from the world and not a part of it. Holiness belongs only to God not to any other being like a tzadik. But God can make something holy. He does this when that thing becomes separated from the world and is so to speak owned by God. This is the concept of holiness  of the Torah. Purity is something else. It is the permission to touch something holy or to come into the holy place. Purity is not the same thing as holiness. But a lack of purity forbids one from touching or eating something holy. I think it is important to keep the most basic and essential beliefs about God of the Torah in mind.

הבעיה עם פנתאיזם היא זה: הטבע הוא לא אלוהים. ואלוהים הוא לא טבע. הוא היוצר של הטבע. אין לו שום קשר  משפחה עם בני אדם.  אין גבול רך בין בני אדם או צדיק והאלוהי. אני רוצה להזכיר כהערת שוליים שהאמונה של התורה היא האמונה באל אחד-לא פנתאיזם.  אלוהים מתעלה מעל הטבע.  הטבע מבטא את רצון הבורא. אבל הטבע הוא לא אלוהים עצמו. הוא לא מזוהה עימו. הוא שונה לחלוטין. הוא לא קרוב משפחה לבני אדם בכל דרך שהוא. אז אין טשטוש, ואיו גבול  רך בין בני האדם ואלוהים. זאת אומרת שאלוהים ברא את העולם יש מאין, ולא מהחומר שלו. אין לו חומר. הוא לא עשוי משום חומר, ולכן שום דבר לא יכול להיות עשוי מהחומר שלו. והוא נפרד מהעולם ולא חלק ממנה.
 אבל אלוהים יכול לעשות משהו קדוש. הוא עושה זאת כאשר דבר שהופך להיות נפרד מהעולם והוא נכנס בבעלות של  אלוהים. זהו המושג של קדושתה של התורה. טוהר הוא משהו אחר. זה הרשות לגעת במשהו קדוש או להיכנס למקום הקדוש. טוהר הוא לא אותו הדבר כמו קדושה. אבל חוסר טוהר אוסר אחד מלגעת או לאכול משהו קדוש. אין זה מתקשר לקברי צדיקים.
אני חושב שזה חשוב לשמור על האמונה הבסיסית והחיונית ביותר  באלוהים  של התורה בראש הכל.