I have often thought that one of the problems of not having a Bais Hamikdosh, amongst many others, is that as long as there was a machtzis hashekel, there was an easy rule of thumb to define who is a Jew, at least for purposes of discussion, whoever pays the shekel counts. Today we don’t have that, so we have to look for other things.

In a recent radio interview with Zev Brenner, Rabbi Efraim Sturm, formerly of the National Council of Young Israel, told of a level of civility which could apply to even serious ideological opponents. Perhaps the idea is a balance somewhat similar to the Netziv’s (preface to Bereishis)regarding the Avos’ interaction with their contemporaries.

Rabbi Sturm was a representative in the World Zionist Congress, when its majority was trying to pass a bill in favor of a particular form of religious pluralism, while Rabbi Sturm was trying to have it defeated. The Meretz and Labor representatives voted in favor of the WZC bill, but when the ballots were tallied, the bill failed by a very small margin, because all of the Reform representatives voted against it!

When Rabbi Alexander Schindler was asked why Reform did that, he told Rabbi Sturm(loosely quoted) that it was “because of friendship. Many mornings when you came into the dining room, you sat down at our table and kibbutzed with us, and we liked you”(interestingly, an Agudah leader also had a relationship with Rabbi Schindler).

My point in mentioning the above is not to endorse pluralism, or to deny that Reform has caused serious damage to Torah Judaism; I also agree that each interaction should be assessed separately for a possible blurring of ideological boundaries. Rather, my point is that today, civility and menschlichkeit in communication are generally more effective than approaches which may have worked in the past(e.g., using terms like “clowns” in reference to the concept of non-Orthodox clergy is likely to be counter-productive).

Ori: This is a nice, civilized standard. Very good for conflicts between sides that are nice and civilized. The divisions within Judaism are conflicts of this type. We may disagree with each other, but the idea of using anything stronger than words is laughable.

However, this standard is counterproductive when dealing with real enemies. Imagine WWII newsreels in the US showing kindly German grandmothers in Dresden, or Japanese school children learning their letters in Hiroshima. Would they have made the world a better place, or a worse one?

R. Yaakov Kamenetsky zt”l once articulated those guidelines. He pointed to the words of the Rambam after his presentation of the Thirteen Principles of Faith. He argued that the Rambam was a posek, and had therefore paskened for us that no matter what other beliefs a person held, if he/she subscribed to the Principles, he had to be seen and treated as an insider, not an outsider.

What do those boundaries mean? That you would only give credit to groups that follow Torah truthfully? Those that follow Torah and make a few minor mistakes?

People here often lament the exclusion of Charedim. But isn’t limiting credit to groups within certain Halachic boundaries the same thing?

But it this the crux of the problem? It is not at all clear who falls within or without those boundaries.(except to those in the middle, like me, of course)

See I Kings 22, for example, for a discussion that involved both kinds of prophets. The true prophet is clearly in the minority.

I’ll go out on a limb and posit that the publications that appear to fail your DPS standard would claim an exemption based on your last caveat(i.e. in their understanding of halacha these groups don’t qualify for inclusion).

KT