Word: sects
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...mention gonorrhea and syphilis, these diseases went largely untreated and ate away at countless victims. Because we are "too nice" to call attention to the errors and other evils within one another's sectarianism, they eat away at our religious life. The less defensible the practices of a sect, the more it stands to gain by the "conspiracy of silence." While critics of sectarianism generally remain silent, zealous sectarians urge their points of view with emotional fervor. Free and frank evaluation would reduce many evils of sectarianism, but neither sectarian leadership nor sectarian dictatorship willingly sumbits to such evaluation...
Calling itself "Holy" and its tradition "Sacred," a sect considers any "attack" on it too wicked to be tolerated in the public press. Would any but a group unsure of itself deny its critics the opportunity to sell their points of view in an open market of ideas? Is that which must protect itself by such censorship really worth protecting...
...more than 40 years, Reb Blau has been revered by his followers in the sect for his spiritual zeal against the impieties of the age. Time and again he was jailed for trying to halt traffic in Jerusalem's main streets on the Sabbath. Blau even refused to recognize the existence of Israel, on the ground that only the Messiah could restore the Promised Land; he never handled Israeli money or submitted the fiery pamphlets he edited to government censorship...
Orthodox women began to picket the Reb's house, shouting "Whore-lover!" and demanding to know why their daughters were not good enough for him. Summoned before the sect's religious court, Blau refused to abandon Ruth because his vow of betrothal to her could not be broken without her consent-something she would never give. Blau also raised a canny theological argument. His sexual organs, he explained, had been injured slightly by shrapnel during the siege of Jerusalem in 1948. Yet the law (Deuteronomy 23:2) says that no one who is "crushed or maimed...
Blau has said that he will never return to Jerusalem. It is just as well, since a majority of the Neturei Karta bitterly condemns him as a social outcast. But while other elders of the sect are squabbling to see who will replace the lost leader, a loyal handful of Blau's followers pray silently for his return. "In the Talmud," says one, "it is written that a city can breathe only through its righteous man. Now that Amram has left Jerusalem, I cannot sleep at night, for the city is no longer safe...