Shmuely Boteach 'Cross's Line

Call a spade a spade! These are direct quotes from the book:

Encouraging fellow Jews to EMBRACE J—??? J— the patriot was a mamzer and apikorus but this “Rabbi” wants Jews to EMBRACE J— like he’s some saintly hero???

This doesn’t represent Orthodox Jewish beliefs.

Also, the Ramban mentioned in his debate that we hold he was 200 years before the Churban and they hold he was 70 years before the Churban.

Hi atchill.

A large bookseller said the book is not out until February.

Is it possible those quotes were put in by various online booksellers as to their estimation of what the book is about and not part of the text of the actual book?

Just curious.

Poor Shmuley, he bites his own fingers and wants to do a better job. He lost my account.

BT guy –

actually the gemara does discuss him, and does describe him as one with a faulty character, if not an apikores. He was expelled from one of the yeshivas of the time for his faulty character, as demonstrated by his having looked at a women’s eyes, and then commenting on them, which at that time was not done by anyone. I have to check on the apikorsus, but I’m pretty sure that he is branded as one even in the gemara. In such a case, the laws of loshon horah do not apply.

Hi ir.

Thank you for addressing that. Most of what I needed to know on the subject I got from the book, The Real Messiah, by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan.

I would be very surprised if Shmuely Boteach would reach so far as to hold to views of embracing yushke.

While he is not on my list of concerns, I did have a pleasant view of him and how he brought out his Jewishness in his public persona and career.

I know neither enough about Jesus OR R’ Boteach to comment from a place of real undesrstanding, BUT… what I always was taught was that in his day, he never declared himself to be son of any god, nor did he try to start a changed religion. It was Paul who made the big changes that formed early christianity, and all the books of the so-called New T. were written decades after Jesus lived, and even those gospels record the story with changes. they cannot agree on details among themselves. So if they cannot remember something that happened maybe fifty years prior, why would I believe anything that they quote in his name?

I am not saying he was a good Jew, or a Pharisee, or not an Apikorus, or anything, because I really do not know. What I do know is that more destruction to the Jewish people occurred in his name, than for any other reason. He might have been an innocent bystander – according to the Talmud however, he was guilty and chayav misah (from what I have been told, as I never learned this type of stuff). So that being the case, Perhaps people like R’ Boteach should seek to write about something less likely to cause this type of uproar.

He writes ONLY to cause an uproar.

He is basically an Internet troll wrought large. Nothing more, nothing less.

He came just short of endorsing maaseh Onan in one of his bathroom books.

On Gimmel Tammuz the year Jackson croaked, he was in Jamaica having fun – he could care less for Chabad or Jackson. Once he found out his plastic friend peygered, he saw the money so he wrote a fast article about Jackson. Last year, his daughter was about to get married (to the son of another character who was thrown out of Chabad shlichus for lowering standards and worst of all, because he got his name in the WSJ for laundering funds for Diamond Joe Gutnick), so Boteach started to show up at Chabad functions and promise naive shluchim access to bigwigs in exchange for photo-ops. It worked; some of us were scared he would be given a position in PR or fundraising for Chabad headquarters.

Fortunately, Rav Shochet, who is both academically and rabbinically qualified to speak about yoshke, put Kosher Yoshke in cherem, which means Boteach will not be able to show his sorry face in the official Chabad world again.

Yoshke is NOT someone we look up to. Period. Notzrim respect us when we are ourselves, not when we try to be like them. Boteach’s father is from Iran; let him write a book called Kosher Mohammed and see what happens when he tries to sell it there!

His problem is when he says that we should respect yoshke because the notzrim leave us alone. Do we respect kishka, lokshenmi, vishniak or any of the other Hindu getschkes because the Indians are not anti-Semites? Boteach probably finds some wisdom in budhuism, as do all of the new age freaks, but regardless of how well Jews get along with budhuists, budhu is a getschke and not for us.

He has nothing valid to say. The book has been condemned by someone who knows far more about the subject than any of us and Boteach know together. Boteach just regurgitated someone else’s work and added his opinion.