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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • It should be noted that while the views you quote are real and will be used to justify atrocities and genocide, the rabbinic tradition is broad and also contains a quite different, contrasting view. The same overview article you linked discusses the view of the Rambam (Maimonides):

    The true meaning of fatherhood, according to the Rambam, is not the passing on of DNA or any other type of essential nature, but rather education and instruction. A father is one who teaches and passes down an intellectual heritage, and a child is a student who receives that tradition. Avraham Avinu is thus our ancestor not because we are biologically descended from him, but because he taught the belief in monotheism and the lifestyle of Godliness, and we learned that philosophy from a chain of tradition that leads back to him.

    According to the Rambam, the difference between a Jew and a gentile derives not from how one was created, but from one’s beliefs and the philosophical tradition by which he lives his life. Therefore, a convert who learns the Torah is just as much a descendant of the Patriarchs as a born Jew who learns the Torah.

    In this view there is no essential difference between a Jew and a non-Jew. Godliness is a question of how you live.