The Straw Man Logical Fallacy

Low-grade

Abraham’s Streimel

There is a cute saying that Abraham wore a streimel, a Hasidic ‘hat’, and before thinking that this is preposterous, please consider why: ‘Would Abraham leave town without his streimel’? We live in a world where being [religiously] right carries more value than being [religiously] wise. Abraham didn’t wear a streimel. But those dedicated to the search for Abraham’s attire, will ‘find’ scriptural proof that he did indeed wear a streimel. So did Abraham wear a streimel? No, and this is why.

People play games, and the games they play are usually without any real tangible rules. Have you ever seen the guy shoot the arrow and draw the target around it? This is called cheating, and if it were a religious game, it would be akin to playing with an unusual bias. There is no greater perpetrator of [religious] rules than the Church. The church is built on Abraham’s streimel; a strong predisposition that Yeshu can be scripturally ‘found’ seemingly everywhere. Only through false religion and its ministries, could a ‘religious’ story be so pernicious. Not only does the Yeshu story contradict every tenet of wisdom, but it carries with it an unprecedented level of audacity.

Christian clergymen sound much like used car salesmen: ‘Yeshu was Moses’, ‘Yeshu was Moses’ wife’, or better yet, ‘Yeshu may have actually been Abraham’s streimel’! All of this is ‘proven’ with scripture only in hindsight, in the name of being dogmatically right. Religious story-telling is ridiculously based on fabricated scriptures; the core methodology is corrupt. This is not a mere practice of reclaiming wisdom through logic; this is pure replacement theology and it is a trademark of the uneducated. The moral of the religious story is supposed to achieve a true outcome. Where other faiths predictably disappoint, Judaism sets the good example, establishing that the Torah was given in order to reveal God through proper thinking.

Religious discussions revolve around the nature of Man, and scripture speaks about the Jew and the gentile according to their existential destinies, and inter-personal relationships. The Jewish People are known as the Children of Israel, while non-Jewish scriptural vernacular has become subject to much debate. Usually this debate is filled with bias and an Abraham’s streimel argument. The dogma goes, that the non-Jew is to convert and become a part of The Children of Israel. But why?

It is widely assumed that the Hebrew term for convert is Ger. Here is where the corrupt formula is set, basing it on typical biased thoughts: ‘If everyone is supposed to be Jewish in the end, and the Torah has Jews and non-Jews in it…then ‘Ger’ must mean convert. And hey, why not, Abraham was a Ger…’.

Bias leads people to imagine that ‘the World will all convert one day thus Ger is convert’. Too often, what seems to be religiously logical actually doesn’t make any sense at all. In the case of Ger, there is no precedent to anticipate a time of a great global conversion. Ger exists within its many meanings and connotations and Ger does not exclusively mean convert

In some places however, Ger may indeed mean convert, or it may mean partial convert, i.e. Ger Toshav. It may mean the Torah abiding non-Jew in your gates. Ger may mean many things all at the same time. Or it could also refer to something different altogether, like alien, stranger, dweller, repentant, or even Torah intelligence itself! By blindly calling the Ger a convert, one has replaced wisdom with dogma, leading to an elimination of spiritual curiosity. To reiterate, Ger does not mean convert; on the contrary, it is a subject of great scholarship.

Study is an opportunity to reveal Godly Wisdom. To deny this privilege of the soul is sacrilegious and vain. Mankind by nature is diverse and is appropriately found within the diversity that is Ger. Perforce Ger can’t be limited to conversion in context, or subjected to Abraham’s furry streimel.

‘Abraham’s streimel’ is drawn up as a pre-designed target that just happens to end up with a narrow arrow in its center. Teaching ‘Ger means convert’ is a bad idea, and it is the first clue of missing scholarship. Likewise, the ‘Ger is convert mentality’ is Christian in concept and bears the guilt of proselytizing, which Judaism stands firmly against.

If you want to know the truth, I don’t know if Abraham wore a streimel or not, but what The Torah does teach is that Abraham was the father to all Gerim, and specific to Abraham, ‘convert’ is a poor translation.

Ger is worth looking honestly into and is studied best without the ‘that’s not what I was told…’ mantra in mind; it is better to identify with those who are curious and wise than those who are intellectually lost and biased. I stand with the real Abraham as told by scripture: ‘The father of all Gerim’… and although his personal attire was never in question, his offspring inevitably always will be.

This post is dedicated to people who make Avraham streimel arguments. When pressed to deliver facts to back up an argument, they resort to weak logical [and strawman] arguments. The argument would go something like this:

'Avraham was chayav misa [liable for the death penalty] for keeping Shabbos as a Ben Noach.' Someone would then respond, 'please cite an actual source that can be looked up stating as such.' To which the original author would resort to a low grade logical fallacy by arguing, 'No, it's on YOU to show where it is ALLOWED for a Ben Noach to not be chayav misa in this way.'

In this case, as in all cases, the answer is look it up and present your source. As for Avraham and keeping Shabbos, the source is the Brisker Rav, and no, an Avraham streimel logical fallacy does not usurp the Brisker Rav. That is call Am Ha-Aretzass. People that argue this way have no authority or place in any type of education. In fact, they are usually treif fundamentalists, or something even worse.