In response to the question as to whether suicide bombers go to heaven, Imam Rauf said, “One of the things that we are taught is never to say somebody will go to hell or somebody will go to heaven. It is up to God to decide.”
Hmmm. Then allow me to play G-d for a moment.
Suicide bombers go to hell where they burn forever and ever. Period. There. That’s settled. Their souls are driven to the darkest reaches of the blackest netherworld where they suffer for all eternity in the anal cavities of the universe.
Those are the words of Rabbi Boteach, who (like me) enjoys posting privileges at Huffington Post, writing about Imam Rauf of the Cordoba House — you know, the Muslim YMCA that’s not a mosque and lies 99 strides from ground zero?
My question to the rabbi is why it is so terrible the imam has left the judgment of souls up to God? What of the mentally retarded and ill pressed into service — is their fire as hot in his hell as that of the men who strapped the rig to their victim and dropped him or her off? What of the unwilling, drugged, and indoctrinated children? Do they all burn equally?
The Rabbi says:
A preparedness to criticize one’s own community when some of its members are guilty of serious moral lapses is the hallmark of the courageous leadership and religious integrity. When in February of 1994 Baruch Goldstein slaughtered 29 innocent Muslims in Hebron in a mosque, some Rabbis shamed themselves by finding mitigating circumstances for murder. They shunned any comparison between Goldstein and an Islamic suicide bomber. He was a doctor whose friends had been stabbed, they said, and so he snapped. He saw too many Jews murdered, so he became unhinged and sought revenge. He was privy to secret intelligence that the Muslims were about to slaughter the Jews of Hebron, so he struck a preemptive blow. Every one of these cowardly excuses was a betrayal of a Rabbi’s responsibility to teach and enforce the Ten Commandments, among which the most serious is, “Thou shalt not murder.”
I’m glad the rabbi calls out his fellow rabbis. But Imam Rauf has been helping the FBI, so he quite obviously doesn’t support terrorist acts. In fact, here’s a sample of Rauf’s public statements on terrorism:
Rauf: “We condemn terrorists. We recognize it exists in our faith, but we are committed to eradicate it.” A May 21 New York Daily News article quoted Rauf stating: “We condemn terrorists. We recognize it exists in our faith, but we are committed to eradicate it.” He also stated: “We want to rebuild this community. … This is about moderate Muslims who intend to be and want to be part of the solution.”
Slate: Rauf has “denounced church burnings in Muslim countries … proposed to reclaim Islam from violent radicals.” An August 2 Slate.com article reported that Rauf “has denounced church burnings in Muslim countries, rejected Islamic triumphalism over Christians and Jews, and proposed to reclaim Islam from violent radicals such as Osama Bin Laden.”
The rabbi needs to get his head out of the Torah for five minutes. The chief difference between Judaism and its Abrahamic brother-faiths is that God alone gets to judge the soul in their theologies. It’s a meritocratic afterlife. You have to admire this.
