At https://www.sefaria.org/Likutei_Moharan.29 – end of sec. 1, beginning of 2, but you need to see the whole thing for context.

This is great! Thanks!

Yes. Peirush haTefillah written by R’ Avraham ben HaGra, found in the back of Ruach haChaim (R Chaim Volozhiner on Pirqei Avos.)

In particular, the original version of the thought that I am riffing on is at:
https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14555&st=&pgnum=115 , starting on line 5
(called page 58, for those who have a physical copy with the original pagination)

It means barbarians rape, kill in slow and violent ways, record it in their phones to brag about, rape, mangle the bodies, etc, etc, etc… and get MORE world support. The world cannot be counted on, “We are believers, the children of believers, and there is no one on whome we could rely but our Paremt in heaven.”

What does it mean no one else was listening?

Thank you and Good Shabbos!

Rabbi Prof. Shalom Carmy posted something similar to Avodah:

People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to take for granted things that I don’t.

The people who keep insisting that it’s necessary to prove things about G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising these proofs is identical with knowing G-d.

Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I’d do, except as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence

Yir’ah without love – surely there is here a deficiency of yir’ah;
love without yir’ah – there is nothing here at all.

Wow, I really enjoyed this.

Iron does it. with regular (sleepy?) yeast, you just don’t use iron alloys when baking. This is known amongst bakers (professional and home) — don’t make your dough in a metal pot. Although stainless steel is so non-reactive, I think banking with stainless is fine.

But for our case of very active yeast — any iron or non-stainless steel should work.

The point of the opening of the post was to encourage people to avoid vilifying others’ minhagim because of how they seem to us. The argument for pagan origins is actually quite thin here. The objectors (e.g. Mesora.org) have to find examples centuries and thousands of miles away as alleged precedent. Influence from practices the Chassidim in question never heard of???

I therefore question the objectivity of that “smacks of paganism” reaction, and ask you to be a little more “eilu va’eilu” about it.

And in the closing I mentioned Purim costumes. They started out in Italy as masks. And shortly before Purim in most years, Catholic countries mark the day before Lent with Carnival, which also involves masks. (A more debouched version is New Orleans’ Marti Gras.) We all have minhagim of suspect origin. But if only academic research can dig up the origin, and we found something meaningful to take from the practice, apparently the result still qualifies as minhag.

Zugot is Persian, not Roman. But I cannot accept that Chazal just assimilated Persian avodah zarah. There is more to zugot and the Bavli’s demonology than that. Perhaps they believed that things people believe in matter. The way these things don’t harm people who don’t believe in them. Maybe two-ness is something to be avoided in a country where the surrounding culture believes in Dualism. (As Zoroastrianism in practice can.)

Are you suggesting that zugot have a natural origin? I thought at most it was a Roman superstition.

1- I should have said something like “too active” rather than “too much”. You end up with bread with abnormally large holes (think a half-inch across). [Now edited. Thanks! -micha]

2- There is an idea in the gemara about avoiding pairs (“zugos”) in general. See this discussion https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/114701/careful-about-zugos-today

1. I’m confused about the “too much barm” problem. Why counter it with metal as opposed to using less in the first place? I assume there’s more biochemistry involved, since as you say, other cultures have ended up there too.

2. Not boiling an even number of eggs? This is new to me and I wasn’t able to find anything via Google. Can you enlighten me?

> I also changed the associated image so as not to contradict RSM’s point. <
Thanks, R'Micha.

Corrected, thanks. I also changed the associated image so as not to contradict RSM’s point. (Thanks to you and Art for pointing that out.)

1. Levels of mafsiqim:
   1. GOLD LEVEL
      1. esnachta
      2. sof pasuq (a/k/a/ silluq)
   2. SILVER LEVEL
      1. segol
      2. zaqaif (gadol or katan or in combination with qadma on the same word)
      3. tipcha
      4. shalsheles
   3. BRONZE LEVEL
      1. zarqa
      2. r’vi’i
      3. pashta (NB: always printed on top of the last letter to distinguish from a qadma, which is NOT a mafsiq and is printed on top before the last letter)
      4. t’vir
      5. y’siv (NB: always printed ahead of the first letter to distinguish from a mahpach, which is NOT a mafsiq and is printed subsequent to the first letter’s vowelization)
   4. COPPER LEVEL
      1. munach l’garmai (looks like a munach, which is NOT a mafsiq, followed by a p’siq)
      2. pozair
      3. t’lisha g’dola
      4. azla, gairaish
      5. gairshayim
      6. p’siq (perhaps not technically a mafsiq, but does indicate a pause; almost never occurs after a munach [when it actually is a siman that said ta’am is a munach l’garmai])
      7. qarnai farah

   ---

   Thanks for reading!

This is a one of key things that makes me happy these days.

What I meant was, since ritual impurity is a product of death, and human mortality is a consequence of the sin in the Garden of Evil, ritual impurity is part of that tragic reality of non-Eden (and mortal) life.

No, it’s really not that different. But that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. Chazal conflate “saro shel Eisav” with Samael and the satan often enough. Eg the Tanchuma on our pasuq reads:

ויאבק איש עמו, ×–×” סמאל שרו של עשו שבקש להרגו, שנאמר וירא ×›×™ לא יכול לו…

Is this angel’s mission really any different from the known missions of the Satan and the Yetzer HaRa? What about Amalek’s obsession with wiping us out physically?

As an angel, he is defined by his mission. Two missions – two angels. Zero missions, zero angels. That’s the whole reason why an angel’s name and their Mission Statement are the same thing.

I was trying to say that the angel accurately described the mission of trying to get people to ignore the whole subject of pursuing missions. His mission is “what is this, *you* asking me about my name / mission?”

I also do speaking engagements. Something the age of Zoom has made logistically and financially much simpler.

If you believe this interview shows my public speaking abilities in a good light, feel welcome and requested to share it!

In the next se’if (#8), the AhS writes about a minyan that evaporates in the middle of leining. They finish the 7 aliyos, but maftir is a new inyan and there is no minyan for it. Even though the maftir would be immediately after leining, like a Qaddish would be.

Rather, I think Qaddish is uniquely a closing ceremony, and therefore it alone depends on the minyan of the section being closed. Still, it is called a davar shebiqdushah like Borkhu or Qedushah. Which implies that the idiom “davar shebiqdushah” is not referring to the qedushah of Qaddish itself creating the need for minyan. And thus by parallel the other tefillos. (As I noted — this is more consistent with the “shebi-” anyway.)

What you call your “more ‘yeshivisheh’ perspective”, I would say it really more Brisker. “Chalos” is a way to abstract halachic categories away from any prior logic. It is very much a “Vos?” framework rather than the “Fahr vos?” I was working within.

To me the focus of the post was the idea that the qedushah under discussion is that of the minyan, of people coming together, not of the prayer or learning. This is why I put the post in my “Other-Focused Orthodoxy” category.

Something that should have gone into the post (and maybe will in an edit, if you agree) is this quote from R’ Shimon:

היינו, שנהיה אנחנו בחירי יצוריו, מגמתנו תמיד להקדיש כוחותינו הגופניים והרוחניים לטובת הרבים, כפי ערכנו, ולדעתי כל ענין זה נכלל במצות ה׳ של ״קְדֹשִים תִהְיוּ.״

Qedushah comes from people committing to do Hashem’s work.

Tosafos, Pesachim 119b:

שראה בו דבר ערוה – ואם תאמר דבאלו מציאות (ב”מ דף לב: ושם) אמרינן אוהב לפרוק ושונא לטעון מצוה בשונא כדי לכוף את יצרו והשתא מה כפיית יצר שייך כיון דמצוה לשנאתו וי”ל כיון שהוא שונאו גם חבירו שונא אותו דכתיב (משלי ×›×´×–:י״ט) כמים הפנים לפנים כן לב האדם לאדם ובאין מתוך כך לידי שנאה גמורה ושייך כפיית יצר:

There is no problem teaching tzeni’us. My lament is with the invention of a Judaism that is *about* tzeni’us. This is a trend many of us watched happen. (You also mistake which communities I move in.) Judaism can be framed many ways; but now is not the time to shift the center of attention away from how we treat others to the pursuit of our own holiness.

I also think OFO was, historically, the majority position. https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/142643?lang=bi

2. Isn’t it a tad unusual for you, as being from outside the communities operating Beis Yaakov’s, to claim more authority in interpreting the original or current goals or intentions of the Beis Yaakov’s than members and faculties of Beis Yaakov’s?

3. In the past quarter century the observance of tznius in dress by women among the more right-wing Orthodox communities that utilize the Beis Yaakov’s have notably weakened. This may explain and justify any greater focus on this obligation.

Well, I agree that he seems to show both mindsets, but not in the way you describe.

Being a systemic thinker doesn’t make you a rationalist. The Ari’s addition to Qabbalah was nothing if not a framework to give a more consistent system to understanding tzimtzum with the whole sheviras hakeilim model, and how the sefiros interact by systemitizing the concept of partzufim.

So here’s my problem labeling him.

If we look at biographical data, such as R Yaakov Feldman’s notes here https://torah.org/learning/ramchal-classes-special1/ , the Ramchal was clearly trying to experience the Ineffable Divine.

But if we look at his Qabbalaistic writings, eg Qela”ch Pischei Chokhmah, he really focuses on unpacking metaphors into a system that makes sense from first principles. That is where I see his Rationalism; he is trying to show the brilliance of the system and how much it makes sense.

I don’t know how close they were; for most of their life the level communication you describe was impossible. Certainly during the period Mussar was invented. Yes, later, when R Yisrael Moved west with hopes of bringing non-observant Jews back.

But what you say about bringing RSRH to Poland… In Tenu’as haMussar, R Dov Katz records a tradition that R’ Yisrael considered Torah im Derekh Eretz the right move for the needs of German Jewry, but inappropriate for Eastern Europe. He understood people well enough to know there is no one-size-fits-all derekh; these things depends on the individual and on the culture. Although R’ Yisrael expressed interest in having Nineteen Letters translated for consumption by East European Jews.

I think you are right on both, and fixed them.

Slabodka was one of the three big schools of the Mussar Movement. And by “school” I mean both in the sense of the physical yeshiva, and as a “school of thought”, a subtype of Mussar.

So the question of reading material to explain what Slabodka was is a little broad. Are you asking for historical information about Slabodka? On an academic or popular level? Or of the differences between the Mussar and Yeshiva Movements in Lithuania? Or a book that’s just a nice intro for exploring Mussar as one’s own lifestyle? Or…

You clearly see Slobodka of old as a wholly different institution than the yeshiva’s are today, not just in the way that yeshiva’s in Europe were different than yeshiva’s in modern Israel. Could you, please, suggest some reading material that can show or explain that?

Paul borrowed from the Shelo Asani berakhos. (And that could have been Eliyahu’s reference here too.) We understand these berakhos as thanking Hashem for having more mitzvos than people in the other category. Paul’s letter is all about how such distinctions are due to being under the “curse” of the Law, and under Yeish”u, all are equal.

Here we are apparently contrasting the glory of being a metzuveh with the more real worth that comes from being an oseh.

One was mentioned in the article… How does one run a college? Should the rabbaim have control over the secular program?

I hear what you are saying, but…

Would you have that mental image if your usual koreikh were a wrap, rather than a flat sandwich?

Here’s another: (Eduyot 4:10)
הַמַּדִּיר אֶת אִשְׁתּוֹ מִתַּשְׁמִישׁ הַמִּטָּה, בֵּית שַׁמַּאי אוֹמְרִים, שְׁתֵּי שַׁבָּתוֹת. וּבֵית הִלֵּל אוֹמְרִים, שַׁבָּת אֶחָת.

If one vows [to abstain from] his wife in sexual intercourse,Beit Shammai says: [After] two weeks [of abstinence his wife may sue him for divorce]. And Beit Hillel says: [After just] one week.

Now, when was the last time a woman could sue for divorce and she was awarded a kosher get?

Hyperbole!

My sefer, Widen Your Tent (c.f. Yeshaiah: הַרְחִ֣יבִי ×€ מְק֣וֹם אָהֳלֵ֗ךְ), went to the printer a couple of days ago, bH and ba”h. I went with Mosaica Press, so it will be available everywhere Feldheim books are.

Very brief overview:
Introduction: the importance of developing a big-picture view of Judaism.

Chapter 1 is the haqdamah and translation.

Chapters 2-7 are my thoughts on the subjects Rav Shimon raises. How one talmid-of-a-talmid builds his worldview around the haqdamah.

Chapter 8 discusses a few core middos that are central to living according to Rav Shimon’s values, some of which look very different when one’s goal is a broad “ani”.

“Chapter” 9 is just a few closing pages, a thought by Rav Dovid Lifshitz (R’ Shimon’s talmid, my rebbe), to fulfill the idea that every sefer (like Shemoneh Esrei) should end with shalom.

Thank you for listening to the shiur.

I am not sure what you are responding to, since I did not try to analyze Bil’am’s history at all.

I just hold him up as an example of someone who maintains a close relationship with G-d, but isn’t a good person. And thus suggest that maybe in the medrash, Hashem is holding him up to the nations as an example to say: your excuse of “we had no prophet” misses the point. You don’t need prophecy in-and-of-itself, you need morality.

So, basically, utter speculation…

The Raavad identified someone we would call an outlier and considered him holier than the Rambam.

Kesav Tamim exists, and was written by someone whose work would at least partly survive nearly a millennium.

All academics did was suggest that there was only one outlier, not two. And if they are correct, there is no one as far out as the Raavad is usually taken as suggesting. Academia in this case actually reduces the novelty, not the usual digging some up where there isn’t any.

The Chashmona’im end up getting rid of the third seat of authority as well, by backing a version of Judaism that deprecates the authority of the rabbi.

I think your point reinforces my thesis, but given your later comment calling this one “obsessing about my minor comment” I’m not sure you do. After all, the Chashmonaim were religious leadership absorbing civil leadership role, rather than the other way around — appointing civil leadership who are also spiritual exemplars. If we’re to make a comparison, the Chashmonaim charicatured “daas Torah”, not my interpretation of RYBS’s model.

The early Chasmonic leaders were careful not to usurp ‘Malchut’ so did not consider selves kings as reserved for beis David.

Doesn’t the negative connotation of ‘People Pleasing’ come from the idiom referring to someone who lacks self-esteem and is trying to buy the esteem of others to compensate? Rather than something being wrong with pleasing people in-and-of-itself.

In contrast to “רבי אומר: איזוהי דרך ישרה שיבור לו האדם? כל שהיא תפארת לעושיה ותפארת לו מן האדם….” (Avos 2:1).

There is knowing yourself, the pros and cons, and how you act with them. There’s also understanding how one works, which is a chochma and art that most don’t know or understand.

Take a computer. I can know how to work it, even know some shortcuts and tips. But I might necessarily know how to fix or program it.

Training the body and working with both the neshama and guf is not simply cheshbon hanefesh. It’s fixing and reprogramming it!!! So we need a spiritual technician to guide us through it. To really understand how they work and interrelate.

See what I said in reply to “barzilai” — RYAmital said just that, but it doesn’t fit the Rambam Hil’ Dei’os 1:6:

כך למדו בפירוש מצוה זו מה הוא נקרא חנון אף אתה היה חנון מה הוא נקרא רחום אף אתה היה רחום מה הוא נקרא קדוש אף אתה היה קדוש ועל דרך זו קראו הנביאים לאל בכל אותן הכנויין ארך אפים ורב חסד צדיק וישר תמים גבור וחזק וכיוצא בהן להודיע שהן דרכים טובים וישרים וחייב אדם להנהיג עצמו בהן ולהדמות אליו כפי כחו.

The Rambam illustrates imitatio Dei with examples beyond the 13 middos, even adding “and the like” afterward.

That’s why we get the 13 middot, perhaps – to tell us what to pay attention to, since we cannot figure it out just from our experience of Gd’s actions in the world?

Yes, that works on the hypothetical plane. But it doesn’t help on the pragmatic level — if we cannot see His Middos accurately enough to know how to emulate them, how can one fulfill “vehalakhta bidrakhav”.

I think pshat is that we have a mesora from Avrohom Ovinu that the true middos are rachamim, and we see cruelty only because physical vision is twisted and shifted.

And would one think that vehalakhta birdrakhav means we should kill people?

I am still trying to make sense out of imitatio Dei. R’ Amital notes that the Sifri picks examples from the 13 Middos haRachamim. As in “ta’asu lefanai keseider zeh…” The problem is that the Rambam’s paraphrase in Hilkhos Dei’os does not. Not that I feel a particular need to follow the Rambam, but it does show that the topic isn’t open-and-shut.

In general principle, we agree, thought.

I also gained from doing the opposite — not only keeping a cheshbon of where one is, but also have in writing where one wants to be. From a mission statement down to subgoals, and sub-subgoals… to whatever level of detail you need so that you can relate the path you’re trying to follow to the day’s decisions as they come up. See this post.

I didn’t quite understand what he meant by this. Was he saying that he has done cheshbon hanefesh and it hasn’t produced results?

I don’t mean to ignore the wonderful idea’s you responded with but isn’t the beginning of all this work cheshbon hanefesh? That’s the whole point of sefer Cheshbon Hanefesh. That’s how you ‘train’ the nefesh beheimis.
The beginning of the Mesillas Yesharim (Zehiurs) is all about that. You can debate the point but if we are to take the Mesillas Yesharim as our guide, the Ramchal very explicitly says that you cannot succeed or develop without doing a cheshbon both at set times and during the course of the day. [The chachamim (neviim) in the gan hamevucha teach “bo-u cheshbon” etc.]

Simply put- how is someone supposed to “just do it” without knowing how they work and why they fail or succeed? Even the most beautiful idea’s and mussar shmoozen will just be forgotten.

[We would still have to discuss what cheshbon hanefesh is, how to do it and what the goal is, but that’s a separate point.]

After his affair, I have struggled myself with the place of Orthodox Judaism in my life. Among other things, they arranged to spend many shabbos weekends together, casting a distinctly dark and painful stain for me on the most beautiful and family-oriented aspects of Shabbat. Knowing that he would use attending services, classes, and activities at synagogue as a means of seeing her, catching a moment alone with her in passing – and that he met her in just such a community-related activity – causes pain for me. And, the whole inner turmoil over how one who is moving forward in embracing Orthodox Judaism as a Ba’al Teshuva (my husband did not enter into our marriage keeping kosher or keeping the shabbos or any other form of mitvos; these were aspects of our life together that I brought into the marriage originally) could engage in such powerfully deceptive and destructive acts – as well as how someone from the very congregation could participate with him in those acts – has shaken me. Her use of various kabbalistic texts, rabbinical essays, and talmudic references as ways to validate and demonstrate how their involvement was clearly the “will of Hashem” and “Hashem knowing that they are two halves of the same heart” has been incredibly disturbing for me.

On our therapist’s advisement, he has since left that particular synagogue and has begun to seek involvement with another area synagogue.

His affair partner just sent him a text, despite his repeated requests that she refrain from contacting him since the affair ended. Apparently in reaction to her observations that he is no longer in attendance at the synagogue where they met (which she assumes to mean that he has left observant Judaism) she tells him “It’s not my business, but I feel strongly that moving away from frumkeit is more damaging to you than anything.”

Her statement for me truly exemplifies frumkeit as acting in an inherently egoistic and self-centered way, and thereby pushing one ‘to only do what is good for himself’ or herself. As such, it truly is the ‘wrong kind of religiosity’ and does not accurately reflect priorities.

For me, finding this article comes at a very timely point. Thankfully, this article has helped me clarify for myself my spirituality, how I have long seen the embracing of mitzvos, and how I can best continue to heal myself and to continue growing in my own observance.

(Also, Bereishis Rabba 79:6.)

The Tzemach Tzedeq cites that as proof.

If it didn’t refer to hunting, and therefore to the hashgachah peratis the hunter received, it would be a clearer-cut source. Rashbi could be saying that if Hashem’s hashgachah for the hunter can go so far as to pick which bird he will catch, all the moreso when the person is the hunted.

See also the Riqanti’s (#491) defense of the Rambam’s position:

..ובבראשית רבה ר’ שמעון בן יוחאי ×”×™×” טמון במערה ×™”×’ שנה… חמא חד צייד קאים צייד צפורים דכד הוה שמע ברת קלא אמרה דימוס הות פשגא שפיקולא הוי מתצדא, אמר צפור מבלעדי שמייא לא אצלח כמן (לצוד), וכמן דבר נש… וזה הדרש הוא במקומות אחרים לרז”ל. מכל אלו הדרשות נראה ×›×™ השגחת השי”ת היא אפילו בפרטי הבהמות והחיות. ואין ×–×” דעת הרב הגדול ×–”ל בספר מורה הנבוכים… אמנם אם נרצה לישב אלו הדרשות לדעת הרב ×–”ל יש לי ליישבם ממאמרם ×–”ל שאמרו אין לך כל עשב למטה שאין לו מזל מלמעלה מכה אותו ואומר לו גדל, שנאמר הידעת חוקות שמים. והענין ×›×™ ×›×— התחתונים הוא בעליונים, וכל מלאך שומר את תפקידו אשר הופקד עליו. ולזה אמר במאמר הנזכר ההוא דממנא על עופי אתער לגבי קב”×”, הוא נראה כאילו מסרם תחת השומרים, אך אין השגחת השם פרטית עליהם. וגם ×–×” הדרש האחרון אמר הוה שמע ברת קלא וכו’, תיאר הענין לבת קול. גם אין להביא ראיה ממעשה נסים. ומה שאמר רבי שמעון לא אמר אלא להפלגת המשל ולהגדיל השגחת השי”ת על האם בגמול ובעונש…

But really, I’m in the same boat as you. I am a modern, raised with today’s notion of how HP works. I am trying to understand the rishonim because their opinion cannot be ignored. And besides, understanding the sugya better will help hone my understanding of my own beliefs. (As R’ Rakeffet often says, “You cannot be a Religious Zionist without studying VaYoel Moshe and Al haGe’ulah ve’al haTemurah. If you don’t know the sugya, you don’t really know your own shitah either.)

This year Pesach is pretty late; Nissan is the 2nd month of spring instead of the first. Are they bitter yet even in a year like this one? Or would you say the symbolism is obvious to anyone from an agrarian society, who all know such things about how lettuce grows, and being bitter while eaten isn’t actually part of it at all?

By the way, none of which is less true for other members of chicorae.

Maybe I should have written it about what is bitter on time for the seder…

Wild! Wish I did…

I am saying that the rise of the Haskalah created the need to consciously embrace an Ism altogether. Including both Chassidus and Hisnagdus. Eastern European Judaism in the 18th cent was culturally driven, not ideologically driven. There was no proto-misgnagdic worldview, outside a few rare hashkafah books.

Good! Then I’m so glad a didn’t say that! What I did say is that the fall of the ghetto wall and the rise of Hashkalah made the status quo ante, a world without active movements, impossible. There were no “traditional movements” to undermine, but an unconscious cultural identity. This is what we Jews do, full-stop.

The whole thesis of this post is that in Ashkenaz, movements arose in response to this new need to have a reason to be Jewish. Some of those movements provided O answers, and some not. O preserves the more critical elements of the tradition despite being impacted by the haskalah.

I had not heard that the founding of chassidus (as opposed to its evolution) was similarly a reaction to the haskalah – did such exist in any significant form in mid-18th century Ukraine? My impression had been that it was more a response to perceived deficiencies in the worldview that would eventually be called misnagdus.

Micha, apparently the OU doesn’t pasken like Rav Moshe regarding tuna, using similar arguments to what you quote from the Arukh HaShulhan. Yet Blue Bell Ice Cream and Peanut Corporation of America show how greed enters into the equation. Agav, the OUs position that Bumble Bee has machines which will automatically reject fish that are not tuna, begs disbelief given the current state of machine learning / AI, and certainly was not feasible even a short while ago.

Abe: Asked like someone who didn’t read the post…

“In the Arukh haShulchan’s analysis (YD 115:1-17) we have both issues:

“1- Eliminating the risk of drinking milk that is adulterated with something that isn’t kosher.

“2- A piece of rabbinic legislation that requires some kind of Jewish observation during milking….”

An economy where cow milk is cheaper than anything treif the farmer might mix into it, and the farmer doesn’t raise non-kosher animals, #1 is taken care of without any mashgiach. Like beer — we don’t assume people randomly do things that could harm their own business. In the AhS’s formulation, you would still need to have someone Jewish stop by for part of the milking just to satisfy the terms of the legislation.

Presumably the next time we have a Sanhedrin empowered to repeal laws, since the purpose of the rabbinic legislation became moot, they’ll do away with this one.

I am glad you enjoy this blog!

You appear to be misled by Fraedlander’s aging English. He doesn’t mean “enjoy” in the sense you’re taking it. For example, here is R’ Yosef el-Qafih (“Kapach”)’s translations.

3:18: “שכל אחד מאישי בני אדם, אשר השיג מאותו השפע מנה יתרה כפי עתוד החומר שלו והכשרתו, תהיה ההשגחה בו יותר בהכרח”. He says the hashgachah will necessarily be greater. And indeed this is the only way it fits the argument the Rambam is making — that human understanding of theology is the conduit by which hashgachah reaches a person.

And 3:51:

×›×™ לפי ערך דעת כל בעל דעה תהיה ההשגחה בו. והנה האדם השלם בהשגתו אשר לא תחדל דעתו מהי תמיד, תהיה ההשגחה בו תמיד. והאדם השלם בהשגתו, אשר רוקן את מחשבתו מה’ בעת מסוים, הרי תהית ההשגחה עליו בעת מחשבתו בה’ בלבד, ותתרוקן ההשגחה ממנו בזמן עסקיו. ואין התרוקנותה ממנו אז כהתרוקנותה ממי שלא השכיל כלל, אלא תתמעט אותה ההשגחה, כיון שאין לאותו שלם ההשגה בזמן עסקיו שכל בפועל, אלא הוא אותו השלם אז משיג בכוח קרוב, והרי הוא דומה אז ללבלר מהיר בעת שאינו כותב.

Nothing there about enjoyment or benefit, just proportion — the more often you are thinking of G-d, the more often hashgachah is involved in your life. Which is different than 3:18 where the intensity of hashgachah is said to be proportional to the perfection of one’s understanding, since in ch. 51 he is comparing frequency.

As for hashgachah vs free will, I had reached the same conclusion. See “Divine Timelessness“:

… G-d doesn’t know today what I will decide tomorrow, because G-d doesn’t have a “today”. G-d simply knows. The nearest way in which we can assign a point in time to His knowledge is when speaking of when His actions impact creation. And Hashem assures us, using Yishma’el as an example, that man is judged “ba’asher hu sham as he is there” not based on his future. Within time, the direction of causality is preserved.

Similarly, our opening issue. Miracles were written into creation because Hashem has no “initially” and “later”. The decisions were made “simultaneously”, for want of a better word to say “not separated by time”. And in fact, they were therefore the same decision.

This is true for every event of all of creation. God created a 4d sculpture. Not a watch that He could then leave to run on its own. (The use of the word “then” in the previous sentence is a tip-off. It makes sense only in the context of time.) Picture the printing of a timeline in a book. The spot of ink representing 1702 was printed in the same act as the spot representing 2004. Because from the perspective of His Action there is no time, all of the history of the universe is equally ma’aseh bereishis — the act of creation. Our persistence from one moment to the next is the same “strike of the printing press” as the six days at the far end of the timeline. Deism is simply not tenable if time is a created entity.

Based upon the translation of Moreh Nevuchim that I was able to find (https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp154.htm), the Rambam DOESN’T deny universal Divine Providence. Rather, he states that “the greater the human perfection a person has attained, the greater the benefit he derives from Divine Providence.” In other words, a person will ***receive more benefit*** from Providence when he is attuned in word, thought, and deed with the Divine will. This is NOT to say that others do not HAVE said Providence, only that they do not receive BENEFIT from it.

This is the meaning in both 3:18 (linked above) and 3:51 (https://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp187.htm). It may be worthwhile to discuss how the Rambam understands the concept of “deriving benefit” and “enjoying” Divine Providence, but that is distinct from the existence or non-existence of said providence on an individual basis.

Rambam later refers to “providence” meaning “Divine protection” as something specifically contingent on our awareness of the Divine, but this is a separate matter entirely.

This site (https://revach.net/article.php?id=857) seems to have a different understanding of the Sefer HaChinukh than you do.

In fact, the idea that Rambam uses (miracles are just calibrated natural events set into motion at the moment of creation) and your previous concept of Hashem acting “without resorting to power” are consistent with a concept of perfect pre-ordination – the meaning of your use in this post of Divine Providence.

Personally I solve the hasgacha vs. free will (false) paradox by pointing out that linearity is a limitation of human perspective, and Chazal clearly understand Hashem to be above linear time. Ergo, there is no distinction in the Divine perspective between the moment of creation and every moment thereafter – creating light and “reacting” to my free will are all performed in the same “breath.”

Ramban says, meaning how Hashem did __Yesh MiYain?_________ is beyond human investigation.

Hi R’ Micha,
Rashi Gen. 2:4 Hashem created all physical matter on day one (then organized it over the first 6 days) is consistent w/ each Yom being 24 hours each. So certainly should not preclude the universe being 5,776 years old. let me abbreviate this as the YeC hypothesis most consistent w/ Torah.. and when i use YeC that is the timeline I am talking about, with no time dilation subsequent to day 4.
I hold there is only one historic actuality.
So we can say either the universe is less than 6,000 years old or it is greater than 6,000 years old.
My cosmological redshift hypothesis is testable and falsifiable.
To the extent it is the scientific probability it renders invalid (falsifies) all deep time dependent scientific hypotheses.

As per where Ramban says how Hashem created, perhaps meaning how Hashem created Yesh main ( ex–Nihlo ), to be consistent you would also have to reject any deep time narrative if you want to reject a literal 6 day narrative. Have you ever said the universe appears to be over 5,777 years old?
if you do not want to discuss the science of how old, dfo not even say that .
but as soon as someone comes and says the universe is older than 5,776 years old we can answer the skeptics, and put them on notice they do not even own the mantle of science, as the scientific probability is ID>YeC> a 6 literal day creation 5,776 years ago 🙂
have a good Shabbos, r

Science is limited in scope. It’s job is to teach you about the empirical universe. It can enable you to read someone else’s DNA, but it won’t help you know them in a manner that replaces years of marriage.

I am saying something very different than you are.

You also are repeating something about the week of creation you have yet to find me a Torah sheBa’al Peh source for — that the “creation week Shabbos was preceded by 6 days of 24 hours”. I gave you sources that deny the idea, albeit not exact mar’eh meqomos. (Rashi: 2:4; Ramban 1:1, 1:4; Moreh vol I, ch. 30). Why do you feel a need to talk me into an idea Rashi, the Rambam and the Ramban didn’t hold of? Are we Qaraim now?

However, science’s biggest limitation in its own domain is that it can really only rule out theories, or inductively gain confidence in a theory it fails to disprove.

(Which is how we get to the rise of “scientism”, an epistemology in which theories that aren’t falsifiable are ruled out of consideration because they would require some other kind of verification. So if it’s not empirical, or not repeatable, or not falsifiable for some other reason, rather than saying “I cannot know using my tools”, they assume “false”.)

Hi R’ Micha,
I agree science is limited, so no point in trying to rely on it to prove/disprove the Torah testimony for those of us who know that fact.
There are many who do not know that fact yet, but are sincere and have been indoctrinated with deep time doctrine dogma so reject the Torah testimony and covenants as binding.
If the science (the highest probability explanation of the natural phenomena based on the maximum available context back the Torah narrative and timeline, so when we point out that the natural observations (science ) attest to Hashem and Torah testimony how is that different than when we say Hashmayim Misaprim Kevodoh .. ?
also would you not appreciate Shabbos more if creation wek Shabbos was preceded by 6 days of 24 hours each and you understood the science behind that Torah?

I pointed to to procedurally problems I have with your motive:

1- One’s emunah shouldn’t rest on a need to have an objective proof. (a) Because it’s not about facts, but having a connection to the Creator and (b) because our exposure to our mesorah should be confincing enough for proofs not to be a big deal. (Rav Yochanan went as far as questioning the emunah of a student who demanded his own experimental evidence.)

2- The Torah shebe’al peh points away from requiring science to align with my reading of Bereishis 1. So why all this effort to try? If the science is on the verge of being replaced by a new one, that’s an issue for scientists, not hashkafah.

i apologize for the typos and poor grammar, but time pressed and not sure how to go back and edit, even if time and ability permit 🙂

Hi R’ Micha,
yes while the Torah is the blueprint and owners manual, it is not here to teach us how to create nuclear bombs or universes from nothing, but it does teach up Hashem created the universe from nothing.
The factual science is catching up with what we knew to begin with from Torah, so we can appreciate this facts as well as the other 13 Principles of Maimonides.
If the leading edge science falsifies all deep time dependent scientific hypotheses, as i feel the empirical evidence of cosmological redshift of distant starlight has, why is that a problem?

I didn’t say that the pasuq has no peshat, I said it has no peshat a human being can understand. This is maaseh bereishis, after all. Do you expect to take the peshat of maaseh hamerkavah that way it reads to us humans as well? Admittedly, it rules out us learning it bederekh hapeshat anyway, the difference is “only” philosophical. In principle, the words not only relay the metaphysics of creation, to the Author (and perhaps some of the angels, perhaps not), they describe the physical history.

Hi Rav Micha,
when Rashi say’s by Joseph looking for his brothers the scripture does not depart far from the simple text (except where qualified by Chazal) he did not say except for Maaseh Bereishis.
i hold there was no time before the initial singularity.
my issue is not with those who are OK with deep time if that aligns with what they think based on the current understanding that is what the factual evidence is , those who qualify deep time with relativity, or a universe 5,776 years old (even thought that is sort of like fence sitting) but with those who exclude publicly as a valid alternative the 5,776 ex-nihlo position.
to me this is blind faith in deep time doctrine based on assumptions (such as uniformitarian assumptions unless proven otherwise.., that we do not occupy a special place in the universe (see the Copernican principle much of modern cosmology was based on) ..some who hold natural means only so they can not consider a designer/creator that we know exists (Hashem) so they can spend lifetimes barking up the wrong trees, spinning their wheels, why should we rely on that popular western school of science?
best regards, r

No, I think no one assumed Maaseh Bereishis to the best any human can understand the chumash was a literal description of the history of how the world came to be. I mean, we do have a mishnah that says as much.

Rashi talks about everything being created “at once”, the Rambam in the Moreh does as well, while the Ramban talks about time between Bereishis 1:1 and 1:2, and according to Michtav meiEliyahu, also asserts that the 6 days are also the 6,000 years of history because even time itself is something we don’t understand. (R Dessler also says that the scientific age is an equally valid perception of the duration of creation, but hashkafically reflects an overly physicalist worldview. In other words, correct technically, but comes from a counter-productive perspective.) The Medrash Rabba talks about worlds before this one, not “just” qabbalah.

I would therefore turn the question around… Name any baal mesorah before the Enlightenment caused a Counter Reformation in the 19th century, for that matter, anyone before the 20th century CE, who DID assert (1) the universe is young, and (2) one is obligated to believe that it’s young. I haven’t found one.

And therefore I think insisting on this modern chiddush as a iqar emunah is creating unnecessary problems for oneself.

(Much the way people insist that not believing in universal hashgachah peratis makes one a heretic, not realize that would include every rishon. And there I have the Lubavitcher Rebbe and lbl”ch the Sifsei Chaim saying the idea dates to the 18th cent, not my own meager research.)

The only thing we can assert about the dating of maaseh bereishis is its end, not its duration.

FYI here are a few books already published. ‘Distant Starlight..’ review edition is in the edit mode as while the premise holds up, i want to improve the presentation and address a few of the peer review concerns.

‘The Moshe Emes’ Torah and Science alignment series:

The Torah Discovery Chronology: ‘Abraham until the Exodus’ https://amzn.com/1523418109

‘Distant Starlight and the Age, Formation and Structure of the Universe’
kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0181C4Q1W
paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1519262205

The Pearlman SPIRAL vs Standard free cosmology model info-graphic:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/291972501_ThePearlmanSPIRALvsSCM

‘The Recent Complex Creation Framework (RCCF)’ six principles:
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015VJ2ZRA
Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1512041815

Roger M. Pearlman
Torah Discovery Institute
20681 W. Valley Blvd.
Tehachapi CA. 93561

661-221-8588
info@torahdiscovery.org
http://www.torahdiscovery.org

Hi R’ Micha,
trust all is well,
i have much more than an outline that explain why 5,776 years aligns with the scientific actuality and why billions or even millions of year do not align with the best leading edge science.
The Torah does not stray far from the plain meaning except qualified by Chazal.
So you think a few Rishonim knew something everyone before them was ignorant of?
If anything a few Rishonim were open to holding by ‘the expert scientists’.
So now that the best science backs ID and YeC and The Torah ID /YeC narrative and timeline there is no reason to hold by the ignorant (by today’s standards as we benefit from cumulative knowledge) scientists the Rishonim may have relied on.
Outside of Kabbalah which i am ignorant of, i am not so sure any Rishonim really did agree to deep time assertions.
The current scientific consensus is premised on heretical assumptions and i hold blind faith/reliance on that deep time doctrine dogma is a type of Avodah Zorah 🙂
have a good Shabbos, r

1- That site only has outlines, not real content.

2- I really hope your emunah doesn’t rest on denying science. Because some day you could well end up with huge questions you are unprepared to answer.

3- Belief in a young universe goes against the vast majority rishonim. Requiring such belief would require finding a rishon who does; I haven’t found one. Literalism about a story the mishnah tells us cannot be understood by human beings?

1- Yes, the MB at times does choose minhag. As I said, we cannot speak in absolutes. Those are exceptions to his method; or perhaps cases where minhag buttresses his point rather than creates it. I didn’t do a complete analysis. But in any case, the instances where he does follow minhag doesn’t create a general tendency to his work.

2- There was no assertion about which came first. Interesting historical point about which volumes of the MB he quotes, for which I thank you. But not really something I thought required an “answer”. BTW, RYME published CM first, so the fact that the two overlapped when woring on OC still places much of the AhS earlier.

3- You are arguing with the MB itself. I am quoting the original title page and introduction of the book. They can’t be wrong. The MB is a survey intended for study, it tells you that’s what it is for.

3b- There are no intimation that the AhS would be more lenient. Many times minhag (in the sense of how the din is followed, not of customs) goes way beyond what halakhah mandates.

4- The CC tells you the MB is a survey, so of course it cites many sefarim. His point was to give a precise of what his many sefarim say. Whether you agree with how his contemporaties (Be’er Yitzchaq or Achiezer) pasqened or not.

But as I said, my main point is #3. I do not know how one can argue about the intended role of the MB when the book tells you its intended role.

If you see problems with that self-description, than you have questions, but you cannot disprove that which the book itself explicitly says.

That said, it’s unsafe to talk in absolutes…. While the intent of the book is to teach halachic theory, he does say it’s to help the poseiq. The two topics — lomdus and halakhah lemaaseh — are not entirely disjoint.

I think this addresses your first three items. However, as for #4… What is clear is that the author of a survey collected sources, whereas a typical Litvisher poseiq wouldn’t necessarily bother. We often find the Igeros Moshe say “ein li seifer zeh tachas yadi — I don’t have this book”, the book the questioner mentions, “under my hand”. And yet Rav Moshe’s son was at Beigelesen’s bookstore 5 days a week for most of the decades in question and borrowing a copy was trivial. Litvisher norms in pesaq tend to be more about the few bigger name sources and reason, not breadth.

Your post also reminded me of Taanit 22a

אדהכי והכי אתו הנך תרי אתי א”ל הנך נמי בני עלמא דאתי נינהו אזל לגבייהו אמר להו מאי עובדייכו אמרו ליה אינשי בדוחי אנן מבדחינן עציבי אי נמי ×›×™ חזינן בי תרי דאית להו תיגרא בהדייהו טרחינן ועבדינן להו שלמא

While [they were thus conversing] two [men] passed by and [Elijah] remarked, These two have a share in the world to come! R. Beroka then approached and asked them, What is your occupation? They replied, We are jesters, when we see men depressed we cheer them up; furthermore when we see two people quarreling we strive hard to make peace between them.

never underestimate the importance of a smile.

תהיה נשמתה צרורה בצרור החיים.

This is what altruism is. No thought of personal gain of prestige, money, or honor. Just do it/don’t do it because it is/isn’t the right thing to do. If it makes you feel happy or Hashem does a miracle for you – that is a natural result of proper navigation through life, and doesn’t diminish from the “lishmah” aspect of your action. There will, of course, be more trials to come, but this is all for your ultimate benefit. Avodas Hashem is not a conventional “hit or miss” operation. Life is constant opportunity, and always in motion. No matter who you are, no matter what your previous history is, you are constantly in motion. It is exclusively YOUR choice which direction you are going.

Thank you.

On the contrary, is anything it was designed to be a men’s club, not a boy’s.” A boy’s club is silly and immature. A respectable men’s club is serious business. Shul is supposed to be serious business.

I would be be flattered.

I hear, but again, look what Seif the M’B is commenting on in the S’A (its the one that the Ikar Mitzvah of Tallis Koton is to be on top of the clothes)this could seem to explain the Chofetz Chaim’s change in tone

For the point I’m trying to draw, it makes no difference — the author did neither.

But I don’t think that’s a plausible read of the MB. To quote 8:26:

He’s talking about the tzitzis tassle itself — something otherwise worn in the pants or stuffed in the corner reinforcement. Also, “uzekhartem” doesn’t refer to the beged.

The Mishnah Berurah could be talking about when you have the Beged of tzitzis over your shirt to leave the strings out and not to tuck them in. Not that when you have the beged under the shirt you need the tzitzis out. I have hear some read the M’B this way.It does not make so much sense to me (especially because this does not fit into the Mogen Avraham who the M’B quotes as his source on the bottom) and I wear my tzitzis out but this is a possible explanation that some give.

What a beautiful and well crafted answer. Thank you.

He just spent pages discussing the meaning of 8 and of tekheiles. He then closes the subsection פתיל תכלת with a mention of the Rambam:

In view of the foregoing, there is no need for future explanation to show that the interpretation of the רמב״ם, according to which only the eighth thread was of תכלת color, accords fully with the symbolic significance of both the number eight and the תכלת color.

So he really just gives meaning to the Rambam’s shittah, rather than meaning to the mitzvah.

As for your suggestion, it would imply a more ambitious project — to propose a meaning for tzitzis that shows how all three positions highlight different aspects of the mitzvah.

However, I would take it in a different direction, and I believe in 19 Letters, Rav Hirsch does as well. Rav Hirsch criticizes Wissenschaft des Jundentums (Scientific Judaism, by which he means the dominant Reform variant) as being more of an alchemy than a science. In alchemy, one has a theory of how the world ought to work, and performs “experiments” based on that theory. In science, one starts with experiments to collect data, and from that forms a theory. Similarly, a real W-chaft would not be reshaping halakhah based on philosophy. Rather, it would take the data of pesaq and find a hashkafah that explains it. As Chazal say, “ein doreshin taama diqera — we do not learn out halakhah from the reasons behind the verses.” Halakhah drives aggadita, not the other way around

R YB Soloveitchik who refers to his exercises in taamei hamitzvos as homiletics (as you do) would demote them even further. They aren’t theories about meaning that are consistent with the halakhah, they have no causal connection at all. Rather than being proposed reasons, they are lessons one can take from the experience.

I am not sure I personally would go that far. But then, that’s just one man’s taste.

Anyway… I would say that if multiple positions are equally viable on a halachic-legal level, then why not lean in the direction of the one you understand better aggadically?

And that’s not just me, that’s every ruling we have based on the Zohar, as well as numerous specifically Chassidic rulings.

You imply that the Rambam’s 1/2 string tekheiles isn’t all that viable from a legal process perspective when you call it a daas yachid. But once we get past the rishonim, the mechaber (Kesef Mishnah on Tzitzis 1:6 — although since the KM predates the SA, R Yosef Caro might still be counted as a rishon) and the Chasam Sofer (shu”t 1:1) hold like the Rambam.

It would also seem the Gra would hold like either the Rambam or the Raavad, depending on how you resolve his comments on Safra deTsniuta (chr 5, “shiv’ah rehitin”) vs those on the Zohar, (Pinechas 228b).

The Tif’eres Yisrael (Menachos 4:1) explicitly narrows the field down to those two opinions.

And kayadua, Radzin also follows the Rambam.

So, I would not say the book is closed. I don’t think it could be this soon after the dispute took on a pragmatic (halakhah lemaaseh) dimension. I don’t think we count opinions on theoretical statements. Maybe I’m wrong. Still the acharonim show willingness to salvage the Rambam from marginalized “daas yachid” status.

Sense or not, there are too many witnesses to be unsure about this. And Litvaks would certainly note and remember a rav who wore his tzitzis out; they generally considered it yuhara to do so, following the Mahari Bruna (15th cent Germany) #96.

I also don’t understand the shift in tone between 8:25 and 8:26 (link). In the first s”q the MB records a machloqes, and says that even lechumerah, you could manage with just leaving them out after the berakhah for enough time to walk 4 amos. Then the second s”q (#26) explicitly rejects that. I am open to suggestions.

Thank you – I liked the article

Actually, HH, it’s not that simple. For example, see https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.61.903

Effect of General Relativity on a Near-Earth Satellite in the Geocentric and Barycentric Reference Frames
Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 903 – Published 22 August 1988
J. C. Ries, C. Huang, and M. M. Watkins

Abstract
Whether one uses a solar-system barycentric frame or a geocentric frame when including the general theory of relativity in orbit determinations for near-Earth satellites, the results should be equivalent to some limiting accuracy. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the effects of relativity in each frame and to demonstrate their equivalence through the analysis of real laser-tracking data. A correction to the conventional barycentric equations of motion is shown to be required.

Both geocentric and barycentric (based on the solar system’s center of gravity; almost heliocentric) are equally valid, and both are actually used.

The problems with claims of geocentrism is that it is usually invoked in order to put humanity front and center. Learning that the earth was no place central was the central philosophical fallout of the Copernican Revolution. This relativistic viewpoint is actually more “Copernican” than the Copernican Model — it’s saying that no part of the universe is “front and center”. Far from saving geocentrism from its critics, it makes the philosophical issue they’re trying to avoid even more profound.

Oh boy. There is nothing in physics that would entertain the idea that would lend to geocentricism in relation to the sun. Sure, perhaps somehow, you can measure the universe and earth itself can somehow be the “center” (though this is nonsense too)… but in relation to the sun, which is what is in question here, there is no denial of what revolves around the other.

And thanks for politely pointing out to me how often I’ve been stubborn about my positions lately!

Believe me, that rewrite was necessary. Thanks for embracing that…:)

Mussar of this sort is for adults not for elementary school children Mussar of this sort is for people who choose to face it not for those who are placed there against their will by a school district.

I am reading Rashi that way too. “Ve’eilu hein” referring to “yesor yisrani” and what he said on it.

In either case, I heard the emphasis on both sides 1- HQBH plunking us down in yisurim when we need them,
2- saving us when we don’t, and
3- giving us the opportunities to see how #1 actually helped.

In fact, I would say the core difference (in message, not format!) between Tehillim and Iyov is their approach to #3.

I’m reading Rashi for 118:19 as an intro to Rashi for 128:20. Ibn Ezra and Radak both place emphasis on the Nitzal’s need to praise the One who has saved; in their reading the dagesh is on the fact that he was saved.

You pushed me to rewrite that sentence, which then got me into a whole elaboration.

Why do you think the existence of a segue is peshat? Personally, I thought that “ki anisani” and “even ma’asu habonim” discussed the same thing. Also, after the “pischu li” is “ki anisi vatehi li liyshua'” — we’re talking about the yisurim again. Either way, I added a link to Rashi, who says:

Something about that sentence structure makes my head hurt…

Also, interesting reading of those verses from Tehillim; the pshat does not reflect that (Pischu li is a segue thematically linking salvation with the necessity of praise), I’m wondering if you have a source(s) that supports that interpretation.

Actually, the requirements aren’t all that high. It has to be someone who would like to think they’re more interested in growth, but not necessarily someone who is driven enough by the idea to actually invest effort.

And I think Aish Kodesh in Woodmere or West Side Institutional prove the basic point that enough people feel a spiritual thirst that there are many areas where I shul like mine might get enough people to operate.

I agree it wouldn’t be the most popular shul in town, but then, shuls aren’t for profit. The point is to provide religious services, not to be popular or bring in the most money. A shul should really should only be concerned with being lucrative enough to stay open.

Looking at my bullet items in order:

Shabbos/YT morning service changes:
The qiddush wouldn’t add time to one’s Shabbos morning commitment, and if your shul already has a pre-mussaf derashah and post-mussaf qiddush, it would be shorter. And in any case, it is an easier morning for someone with a 21st cent attention span to have a 7th inning stretch, not harder. On the other hand, I then add about 10 min to Shacharis. But that’s within normal week-to-week variation.

Chessed & Middah programming:
The shul would have a group that does chessed as a shul function, and offer a va’ad or two and a Teshuvah workship. But there is no obligation to participate. It would be like saying that adding a shiur that 3 people attend every Wed evening would dissuade people from davening in that shul.

Membership agreement:
The only real added requirement is agreeing to follow halakhah (including dina demalkhusa) in fiscal matters. But as pointed out in my blog post, I am under no illusion that it is actually enforceable in all but the most egregious situations.

In any case… I would prefer the right peer group over popularity. As long as we are big enough to raise the money to cover the bills and reliably have a minyan.

Siddur Ishei Yisrael, both commentaries on the bottom.

But it’s not just Mussar. It’s Rava, the Rambam (Moreh 3:26-27), the Ramban (Qedushim Tihyu and ve’Asisa haYashar vehaTov), Ran (Derashos), R’ Yosef Albo (Iqarim), the Chinukh, R’ Hirsch (Horeb), Chassidus, the Gra, R Chaim Volozhiner, the Chida, the Ben Ish Hai… The rishonm were divided among the Scholasticists and the Qabbalists — and both sides posited goals!

Antinomianism is when you change halakhah based on hashkafah, rather than the other way around. I do not see how it has anything to do with finding a meaning in observance if the legal process isn’t disturbed in the search.

And even that is grey…. The vast majority of observant Jews do not wear tefillin on ch”m because the Zohar describes it as qotzeitz bintiyos — whether we’re talking Chassidim, followers of the Gra, Sepharadim, or those in Israel who follow the minhag hamaqom established by those three groups. So there appears to be some role for taamei hamitzvos in pesaq even according to the Shulchan Arukh… Perhaps when the legal arguments are perfectly balanced, and also one side can be seen as just as “lechumerah” as the other (so that there is no “better to play safe)?

I am still unsure why you confuse advocating one shitah means not acknowledging the existence of others. R’ Aharon Rakeffet tells his students that you can’t be a Religious Zionist without learning VaYoel Moshe. You cannot claim to know a sugya without a willingness to understand and discuss other shitos — and if you don’t know the sugya, you don’t really have a position.

I enjoy your insight immensely. I certainly did not mean to offend anyone, and if I did, I apologize.

When the mussar movement was born it was opposed, but was ultimately victorious, wildly so, to my sorrow. (I dont’ fully understand why you work so hard.) In my view, saying mitzvos are “tools to a goal” is antinomian. In my comment I tried to to do my small part in attempting to remind any readers of the anti-Mussar view, before the last proponents of the opposite view pass on.

I do not have the strength presently to explain or dispute each point (you are blessed with “Hashba’as Hakulmus”).

Reb Chaim Brisker did not write “Emuna Ubitachon” chapters 3, 4…

You say a non-Mussar approach on this blog “isn’t going to be advocated”. Fine. Delete my comment, your response and this rejoinder. I strongly believe in private property rights, this is your domain, so do as you wish. I am pleased if you even read this.

I don’t know what gave yoy the impression that would motivate that closing dig. R’ Chaim Brisker is more extreme in that direction, and both are quoted regularly. It’s just that I personally believe in Telzher “fahr vos” over Brisker “vos”. In general, you would find my blog is very Mussar influenced, so the whole notion of not having a personal plan for how to “walk before Me and be Whole” that observance would fit into isn’t going to be advocated. I make a longer and more sourced argument for the thesis in this quicky in “Tools and Goals“.

Pragmatically, I think today’s few in today’s generation, products of democracies, aren’t capable of succeeded with a strict “ana avda deQBH” approach without finding a way to connect to mitzvos as well. Which is probably why Rava’s and the Gra’s warnings strike home with me.

Anyway, knowing what Hashem’s Will surely is is a distinct question from what motivates us to obey it. See the recent Torah Musings post “Why Do We Keep Mitzvos?“

I agree with you last point completely. The challenge of our generation seems to be being able to say “I’m all right and so are you.”

Of course that wasn’t my thesis. I was saying that even though it was quite likely he was a jerk, we were wrong to insult him.

As for why I think he was likely a jerk is that he takes down the Jewish People out of anger toward the elite who were invited to the party. The level of revenge, that he’s going to risk any family or friends he might have, or some poor woman living on the far end of Judea, because people at a party offended him — no matter how wrong they were — is pretty indicative of a pretty bad temper.

But my basic point stands without assuming he was hard to be around in general. People might think of the sin’as chinam thing as being about groups of people not getting along, and I wanted to bring home the point about being nice to everyone. (I tried to add: even the people who make it hard to.)

Based on my observations over the years, there are indeed people are willing to give one direction, but often, IMO, they themselves are not competent to do this.

… and the title of the book says it’s about yir’as Shamayim, so you wouldn’t expect it to have a section on mitzvos that are more directly interpersonal (tzedaqa, not charging ribis, smiling when you greet someone, etc…) One thing about realizing the book is actually a collection, rather than intentionally R’ Chaim Volozhiner’s magnum opus, is that it means that we can’t assume it’s complete. There could be core elements that weren’t in scope for any of the qunterusim. I hadn’t realized that until now, but it seems to hold. And it gives more strength to my attempt to explain the text using context.

“Actually, given his repeated instruction to his son, it would seem that such meaning would be found in mitzvos that aid others.”

The NH doesn’t address how a Jew is to help others phsyically, emotionally and/or financially.

Perhaps when R. Chaim mentions aiding others, he’s talking about the results of doing mitzvote (including torah, avoda and g’miloot khassadim) selflessly (2:6) – acting, speaking and intending to connect the worlds and bring down the Or Ein Sofe to sustain and maintain all of creation. That seems to me to be the primary theme of the NH: Jews are like the soul of the creation, and what we do (action, speech, thought) either nourishes creation or damages it.

R. Chaim makes it clear in his instructions regarding of t’fila (1:21) that a serious person (ah-dam ha-ya-shar ha-o-veid ha-ah-meetee) doesn’t pray for his own needs, but rather for the sustenance and maintenance of all of creation, and what he needs personally will come to him as a a result of his efforts for creation. The same holds for talmud Torah.

So selflessness and living in a way to benefit others is a foundation of the NH.

R. Chaim says that d’veikoot (a manifestation of thought/n’sha-ma) by itself is essentially worthless if the action/neffesh & speech/ruakh levels of the mitzva have not been fulfilled. It’s, at best, a way to make the mitzva more effective in its outcome once the fundamentals have been performed.

I understand that for R. Chaim, dveikoot has – if done right – the potential for adding hit-kosh-root ha-o-la-mote and ho-ra-daht ha-sheh-fa.

And in my understanding, that is the unifying factor for all four parts of the NH, with the design of our souls being the foundation (Shaar 1); t’fila playing its role of bringing down the or Ein Sofe to sustain and maintain the worlds, and t’shuva re-enabling after damage is done (Shaar 2); and talmood torah being the most effective method, due to teh natureof Torah (Shaar 4). And our understanding of God’s connection to creation (me-tzahd hit-khabroo-toe la-o-la-mote), despite our not being able to grasp even the tiniest bit about the ahtzmoot Ein Sofe, is also necessary (Shaar 3).

We part ways pretty late in the discussion. I am arguing that a mystical understanding of communion with Retzon H’ via Torah, while intended, is not NhC’s entire understanding of deveiqus. And I feel justified in doing so by context more than by content of shaar 4 itself. For example, by the parallel to one of the halves of tzimtzum in sha’ar 3, the title of the book, the haqdamah telling you the focus isn’t on Torah as the peak of a process, looking at his rebbe (“האדם נברא לשבר את מידותיו ואם לא למה לו חיים”), R’ Zundel Salanter, and his son’s own quote that all of life is about others — something lacking from Torah-as-an-end-in-itself.

Which is why I added that the union of retzonos echos a mishnah which implies it’s for mussar consequences: learn Torah to want what Hashem wants to be better at the kinds of things in the first half of the book.

IOW, I’m turning your #2 into an iqar, bringing it into the definition of lishmah, the reason why yir’ah is needed, and the key to the mussarist understanding of NhC. As in my opening, I started writing the post looking to explore what RCV could have stood for that would produce the Mussar Movement no less than the Yeshiva World. It would necessarily reflect a different emphasis than the more common, yeshivish, readings.

4] On a personal note, I am not suggesting that NH is normative. I believe that in many ways, it is not,** and that access to it should be restricted to mature people who have studied Kuzari, Sefer HaMada of Rambam, Mesilas Yesharim a,d preferably Hirsch….The issue here is simply clarifying what NH means.

**For example, NH’s claim that Chazal look at yirah asa a silko for the grain of Torah is a novel reading of the Gemara in Shabbos, seemingly not shared by Rashi and in my very humble opinion, one not supported by a careful reading of the Gemara).

His definition of yir’ah is important. That’s found in 4:6:

“(And a person of deep understanding will understand the inner meaning of their (OBM) statement in consonance with our approach, according to the secrets of the Zohar and the writings of the Ariza”l, who stated that the supernal wisdom is revealed only via the aspect of His (blessed be He) sovereignty, specifically accepting the yoke of the sovereignty of heaven.)”

So yir’ah may be defined as ka-ba-laht ohl malkhoot sha-my-im.

And if I recall correctly, also see SA hilkhote t’filla 98, in the R’MA, about cultivating yir’aht ha-ro-m’moot before t’fila.

But RCV is very careful to make sure we do not mean that Torah creates deveiqus in the same way that chassidim mean the word “deveiqus”.

4:2 opens:

ענין עסק התורה לשמה. האמת הברור. כי לשמה אין פירושו דביקות כמו שסוברים עתה רוב העולם.

On the matter of toiling in Torah liShmah: The clear truth is that ‘lishmah’ doesn’t mean deveiqus as most of the world now think.

And

הרי שהעסק בהלכות הש”ס בעיון ויגיעה הוא ענין יותר נעלה ואהוב לפניו ית’ מאמיר’ תהלים.

… that the toiling in the laws of the Talmud in depth and concentration is a matter that is loftier and more beloved before Him (may He be blessed) than the saying of Tehillim.”

And 4:10:

ובשעת העסק והעיון בתורה. ודאי שא”צ אז לענין הדביקות כלל. ×›× “ל שבהעסק ועיון לבד הוא דבוק ברצונו ודבורו יתב’ והוא יתב’ ורצונו ודבורו חד

At the time of being busy with and concentrating in Torah: It is definite that he doesn’t at that time any need for deveiqus at all. So it seems to me that the being busy and contrating alone is itself deveiqus to His Ratzon and Word (may He be blessed). And He (may He be blessed), His Ratzon and His Word are One.

That’s my justification for surmising that the deveiqus of NhC shaar 4 in being connected to Him by internalizing His Will. And not what we usually mean by “deveiqus”.

But my motive (as opposed to justification) lies in trying to fit RCV’s hashkafah into a single picture: It also

• fits the existence of the first two she’arim,
• avoids saying that RCV defines Torah lishmah in a manner contrary to Chazal, is consitent with
• what RCV tells RYV is the central value of life,
• RYV’s introduction to NhC as describing it as book about “the way of the Torah, Avodah, and Yir’as Hashem”, and
• the latter’s putting yir’ah in the title of the book — so how could it “only” be the silo for Torah?

B. feldman wrote:

“…whereas N.H. absolutely refuses to use the term חכמתו ית’..”

R. Chaim uses the phrase “khokhma el-yone” [supernal wisdom]. See NH 4:5:

““Rabbee Cheeya began: ‘The beginning of wisdom is fear/awe of God-YHV”H…’—This text should have stated ‘the end result of wisdom is…’981. Rather, it [fem.] is the first to enter within the level of supernal wisdom…, the first gate to the supernal wisdom is fear/awe of God-YHV”H.” Refer there [for more details].”

And 4:6:

“And this is what they stated, that the Holy One (blessed be He) does not award nor impress the supernal wisdom of Torah so that it should be preserved in his domain and that this learning should be available to him, except to one who [already] has wisdom within him, namely a storehouse of fear/awe that is a necessary prerequisite in a person’s domain, as described above.

“(And a person of deep understanding will understand the inner meaning of their (OBM) statement in consonance with our approach, according to the secrets of the Zohar and the writings of the Ariza”l, who stated that the supernal wisdom is revealed only via the aspect of His (blessed be He) sovereignty,”

And also see 4:12 and 4:28:

“It was only our original ancestor, the one who accomplished the acquisition of his soul-Neshama-of-the-soul-Neshama, who was able use it to contemplate the supernal splendor, the soul-Neshama-of-the-soul-Neshama of the holy Torah, and the supernal wisdoms were revealed to him at the root of their supernal roots.”

“Tzimtzum is the Ari’s model of creation in Hashem “contracts” in order to make conceptual space, a possibility (we do not mean literal physical spacial contraction), of other things existing.”

and

“It seems to me that Nefesh haChaim is describing a literal tzimtzum of Hashem’s glory which then causes the illusion of an absence His Essence.”

I understand R. Chaim’s understanding of tzimtzum to mean “constrained” or “hidden”, rather than “contracted.”

See NH 3:7:

“For the definition of the word “tzimtzum” here, is not a way of referring to leaving a space, or transporting from place to place, to cause Himself to enter and to cause Himself to connect to Himself (so to speak), to actualize a vacant space (heaven forefend). Rather the matter is as stated in B’reisheet Rabba, at the end of parsha 45: “She tzim-tz’ma pa-neh-ha [constrained her presence] and she did not perceive the King”. And in Eikha Rabbatee at the beginning of the alphabetic section “ah-nee ha-gevver”: “She went and tzim-tz’ma pa-neh-ha [constrained her presence] behind the column”, whose explanation there is: using the language of being hidden and covered (refer to the Ahrookh in the entry for Tz-M-Tz-M). So too here [is found] the word Constraining, namely, being hidden and covered.”

1] The idea of Torah study as עשה רצונך כרצונו, which I think is undoubtedly true and may be expressed in other sefarim, seems to me to be strikingly absent from Nefesh HaChaim. I do not see him anywhere talking about how my daas is impacted by cleaving to the will of God. He invokes the fact that Torah is the will of God only to explain that studying Torah is an act of deveikus, since God and His will are one.

2]To add to this: There seems to be a striking difference in the terminology of N.H. and Tanya, even when both explain the same concept, namely that through Torah study one achieves deveikus to God. Tanya states numerous times that the Torah is רצונו וחכמתו ית’, whereas N.H. absolutely refuses to use the term חכמתו ית’, insisting instead on calling Torah רצונו ודיבורו ית’. Moreover, he employs the term, שכך גזרה רצונו ית’, which is a terminology usually associated with chukim, or accepting that which I cannot understand. If this is correct, then the emphasis seems to be on a metaphysical connection to God through connecting to His will, rather than on molding my thought process to match that of God.

Shaul Stamper in his essay about the Cheder makes it clear that unless a boy could make a leining of gemara by himself by age 13, he went to work. Very few apparently could make a leining by age 13.

When I mentioned this to a friend of mine, he replied, “It was written for the Baal Hatanya.”

YL

Well said. This tendentious, and unfortunately common, rewriting of history is tiresome. By the way, you might think it’s done by mistake; it’s not. It’s often an intentional advocacy of a personal stance.

I have no idea what your analogy means. (In any case, Rava says that Torah can be used to cure yourself of evil, but it can be abused as well. “If to the right, it is a ‘sam hachaim’; if to the left, it is a ‘sam hamaves’.”)

In any case, I spoke of the distinction between believing that segulos don’t work and believing segulos shouldn’t be used. Lita is quite clear on the latter — using segulos as magic spells is bad religion.

But belief that they necessarily don’t work even if one did try using one? I don’t think there is a single Litvisher opinion on that one. Remember, Lita had its share of mequbalim — the Gra, Rav Chaim and R’ Yizchaq Volozhiner, the Leshem, Rav AY Kook…

I trust the author of Making of a Gadol’s opinion of what was normal belief in pre-war Lita. He isn’t one to rewrite history to fit preconception.

Taking the analogy at face value, am I then to deduce that it is “bad Judaism” to think that the “Torah cures us of evil desires”?

Yes, you gave a source, but as they say, not all sources are correct.

I didn’t just write that, I pointed you to where you can hear R’ Nasan Kamenetzky say so. R’ Nechemia Goldberg believed so as well.

I think it’s more accurate to say that in Lita, they would tell you it’s bad Judaism to chase a segulah, but they did not all agree about whether or not segulos actually work.

And in either case, they would discuss the gemara’s medical segulos as though they worked, regardless.

I find it hard to believe that Rav Itzele said that “a segulah cures a sick person.” What is the basis for this assertion? The Litvishe Derech has always been to avoid things like this.

Thank you. Can you point me in the direction of R.Moshe’s psak? I don’t remember it being in IM (OC 1:3) where he talks about UReisem Osam.

Grandpa Berger was one of many witnesses. I also confirmed with the local Zakses. R’ Moshe zt”l, in his pesaq against the practice, reports that R’ Mendel Zaks told him the same thing. (Although to be honest, RMF said the shift of the MB to a sefer pesaq was caused by R’ Elchanan Wasserman zt”l Hy”d. I ignored this data point because I think it was R’ Aharon’s efforts that indeed “took hold” among the masses.)

Mikol am… mikol lashon, without the hei hayedi’ah (ha-). But in any case…

“Am” and “lashon” are being used here in the abstract. Not “elevated us from among all the nations”, but “elevated us from the common notion of nation”.

But I don’t have a solid idea about how to answer the question I think you’re asking, why does Qiddush have
אשר בחר בנו מכל עם, ורוממתנו מכל לשון…
but the Amidah has
אַתָּה בְחַרְתָּנוּ מִכָּל הָעַמִּים, אָהַבְתָּ אותָנוּ וְרָצִיתָ בָּנוּ, וְרומַמְתָּנוּ מִכָּל הַלְּשׁונות וְקִדַּשְׁתָּנוּ בְּמִצְותֶיךָ….

Thinking out loud, “Atah bachartanu” is a historical statement, and therefore we speak of the nations and language-communities. But when we speak of G-d in principle singling us out, it’s not just in comparison to existing examples of peoples, but in comparison to the concept of ordinariness.

Ok. Done. Never seen that before, actually.

The enter key on you keyboard works. (As it does for nearly all web forms.)

No, I mean the signup through email box on the top right, after you put in your email and name, there’s not “enter” or the like.

The Israeli flag has a complex history. But there is little question that the one we know would have won out over alternatives had David Wolfsohnn not assumed that the tallis had to be the basis of any flag of the Jew. And his tallis had blue stripes, a custom that emerged in memory of the lost tekheiles.

As AL Frankel wrote in his poem “Judah’s Farben” back in 1865, 32 years before the official adoption of the flag at the first Zionist Congress (translated in full):

When sublime feelings his heart fill,
He is mantled in the colors of his country
He stands in prayer, wrapped
In a sparkling robe of white.

The hems of the white robe
Are crowned with broad stripes of blue;
Like the robe of the High Priest,
Adorned with bands of blue threads.

These are the colors of the beloved country,
Blue and white are the borders of Judah;
White is the radiance of the priesthood,
And blue, the splendors of the firmament.

And so, there is a real connection between the Israeli flag and the blue of tzitzis and of the sky, Aharon’s sapphire staff and the first luchos (which were also sapphire), and the vision of sapphire paving stones under the Throne (a vision unifying the blue of the sky with the blue of the luchos) seen by the zeqeinim at Sinai.

Um, isn’t it obvious? I mean, blue and white, clearly a Zionist thing…

If there is a problem, it is likely at your account. Copies are reaching my test account. All I can think of is the usual “check your spam filter”. Sorry!

The following morning’s post also leverages Nara”n, in a slightly inconsistent way. (In that this one identifies the middle matzah in particular with ruach, whereas that one identifies matzah as a whole, with pesach and maror in the other two roles.)

Firstly, I think there’s actually a real tradeoff between frumkeit and erilicheit. Someone truly involved in solving life’s issues and dilemmas in a way that’s true to Torah ideas is not going to have time to kiss every mezuzah in the world and make sure the entire shul knows he’s said every word of pesukei dezimra. Blatantly excessive piety is almost always a deliberate show to mask something ugly beneath.

Secondly, it would be interesting to think about one’s overall frum vs erlich state not as a snapshot in time but dynamically over a time span and also consider that it is not always a completely conscious choice. People are frequently presented with challenges to overcome and temptations to flounder changing this internal balance. Frequently when we are doing something we think is wrong we try to overcompensate and be outwardly more pious (e.g. shuckle more under a talis) in order to alleviate an internal guilt. On the other hand the kind of gratitude and elation we get from overcoming a challenge usually yields a different flavor of response then garden-verity piety because the resulting change in avodah is more personal the ‘religious’ per se. (e.g. give more charity, do more chesed, etc…).

In general, I think judaism would be better served by a descriptive analysis of one’s experiences and emotions as opposed to the prescriptive recipes which define much of mussar. We should be analyzing the ‘is’ versus the ‘should be’ in order to be in touch with our own humanity.

I don’t know if it is an impurity. Some would define love itself as a feeling of connectedness.

I hear you liking the idea of bitul of the self more than the idea of extending the self. I recommend the essay itself. He argued that it’s beyond human capability, selflessness ends up denying our G-dly urge to be creative, and there is halachic evidence against it as a Torah’s ideal. But R’ Shimon’s is not the only derekh. Bitul is central to many forms of chasidus.

Thank you for the explanation. I wish there were something more pure than loving others because they are extensions of our selves, (though I’m perfectly happy to be the object of such love, especially from the Ribono shel Olam,) and less utilitarian than united for a common purpose (though a common purpose that transcends personal desires is great; unfortunately, I can’t grasp it. Oblivion for an ideal is good for other people, but seems excessive for one’s self.)

Starting with #2, since that clarifies what I would say for #1.

According to R’ Shimon, aniyei irekha qodmin, R’ Aqiva’s ruling that one doesn’t save another at the expense of onself, etc… self-interest necessary and desired facets of creation. The key to chesed is not loving the other more than ourselves, but loving the other because we realize he is an extension of ourselves. The way we love our children. This is the more famous part of the introduction in question, his take on “Im ein ani li, mi li? Ukeshe’ani le’atzmi, mah ani?” (See the link in the blog post to the intro with my translation for both his discussion of the value of self-interest and for the notion of chessed as extending my “I”.) Just as it’s easiest to do chessed for my children and spouse, then my friends, etc… So too the more I feel connected to my community, the Jewish People, humanity, all of creation, the easier it is to do chessed.

But it’s a radiation outward. G-d actually wants us to put our own first.

Hashem gives us things in order to provide to that whole. Again, Knowing which part of that whole He is providing to. Hashem wants to sustain the Jewish People, and therefore what he gives you is for the nation. But He did so in a way that the part of the nation that is most impacted is you and yours for a reason.

My take on “ani Hashem” was:
1- It’s from Me for you-as-part-of-the-greater-whole (Im ein ani li) not for you as a disconnected individual (ukeshe’ani le’atzmi)
2- It is our shared Parent that makes the Jewish People connected as siblings.
3- Our common Ultimate Purpose unites us as well, and is what that money is for.

Now, back to #1: Yes, the stewardship thing is overstated, the mashal can’t be taken too far. But given the context, the reader isn’t likely to.

—

You asked good but fundamental questions about my blog post. If you can suggest emendations that would make my point clearer, I would appreciate it.

1. In the first paragraph, when Reb Shimon says that what we have is as stewards, I found it misleading, especially in light of the next excerpt. We have to give maasar, or chomesh. The rest is ours, not as stewards, but ours, to buy Maseratis and alpine granite kitchen counters for our butlers to use.

2. I don’t understand how you’re explaining ani hashem. If the idea is to love each other out of empathy, because our love for the other is greater than our love for ourselves, which I can understand, how do you see that in ani hashem?

Not qua altruism. Rather, he is saying that avodas Hashem excludes selfish motivation. That doesn’t rule out ascribing altruism a different inherent value despite motive.

This discussion limns selfish altruism.

“Frum or Ehrliche?” The Jewish Press, October 20, 2006, page 1 @

https://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/jp/frum_or_ehrlich.pdf

This article is also available at

https://personal.stevens.edu/~llevine/Frum_or_Ehrlich_v3.pdf

But how would that play out here? The Rambam would be saying that one can’t enter the Pardeis until after consuming “meat” and something that requires immediacy, and the Rama instead chooses something that improves with age? What aspects of learning Torah get worse with time?

there are strong symbolic contrasts going back to Pharoah’s imprisoned servants.

I only want to add that this may dovetail nicely with the Maharal’s (and others’) development of the idea in Gevurat HaSHem that the 3 matzot represent the Avot, as wheat is a bechina of chochma, whereas the four cups cprrespond to the Imahot, as wine is a bechina of Binah…

Elsewhere I describe the similarity between RSRH’s refined and dignified Mensch-Yisrael and Slabodka’s Mussar ideal based on gadlus ha’adam.

But I’m saying that TIDE isn’t /about/ self-improvement, it’s about being someone who happens to be improved over who much of us are. The call for improvement is derivative. Chassidus is about an ecstatic deveiqus more than anything else, but it teaches much self-improvement too.

In my Aseres Yemei Teshuvah Reader, pp 42-44, I suggest a similar idea, but with a different read for Chassidus.

If one puts a cup in the sink, and the cup doesn’t fill as it ought, it could be for one of at least two basic reasons.

The first is that the cup’s mouth isn’t properly in the stream; this is the assumption that the utensil is fine, but not properly connected to the Source. Taking this approach to the human condition is suggested by the notion of the Ran … and … R’ Yosef Albo (Seifer haIkarim 4:13), who hold that the effects of sin are to dirty the soul and that the punishment of sin is that barrier blocking the soul’s access to Divine Good.
…
The other approach would be to assume the cup is flawed, perhaps its mouth could be widened, or there is a hole to repair. In this opinion, the purpose of life is to give us opportunities to perfect the self. Apparently this is the position of Rabbeinu Yona…

My focus there was that either way, the connection between sin and punishment is causal in a way that one can avoid punishment by doing teshuvah is logical.

But when I later connect these approached to Chassidus vs Litvish, it makes Chassidus about the soul being able to receive Hashem’s “Light”, rather than the soul being able to shine outward.

(Yes, R’ Shmuel, we’re still oversimplifying. I’m therefore adding this reminder of that fact.)

This is a very over simplification, but Chassidus sees mitzvos as a vehicle to unveil the light of the neshama. While Mussar follows the Gra who saw mitzvos as a means of perfecting ourselves.

The difference between the two is how the goal is manifested.

.

Thinking about it more… I can see a world-centric hashkafah or a Jewish People centered one. But I’m backing away from the idea of a G-d-centric hashkafah. After all, He doesn’t need anything from us. And as Rav put it (Bereishis Rabbah 44:1), “וכי מה איכפת ליה להקב”×” למי ששוחט מן הצואר או מי ששוחט מן העורף הוי לא נתנו המצות אלא לצרף בהם את הבריות — and does it matter to HQBH whether someone slaughters from the throat [as in shechitah] or from the back of the neck [as in meliqah]? The mitzvos were only given for the created [people] to connect with them.” And again, we can discuss “connect to what”, or maybe we can read it as man using mitzvos to connect other things. But mitzvos can’t be read as being about or for G-d.

Chabad preaches an intellectual (thus the acronym that is their name) deveiqus. So, despite their use of hispa’alus, the measure of man is still closeness to the Borei; they “just” believe that the biggest obstacle could be ego — thus the need for Bitul. And Novhardok’s sheleimus revolves around realizing dependence and partnership with the Borei. But that’s not Bitul in order to connect to the Borei, but to be like Him in doing His Work in the world. And yes, there are G-d- and world-centric hashkafos.

Yes, the deveiqus vs temimus dichotomy is an oversimplification. But it’s true as far as any thumbnail sketch goes.

1) Both viz the Mussar approach as well as the Chassidus approach – each has its own subsets within their overall system that emphasize different approaches toward the end goal, which lends very different meanings to the very words you used to describe the “root” of their hashkafah. And, there is a lot of cross terminology as well between these two systems, as you’ve pointed out elsewhere when Rav Dessler has tried to synthesize the two; Chabad uses hispailus as much as deveykus, toward an ultimate goal of Bitul, for example. (This was even seen as a cause for the first Chabad split between the Mittler Rebbe and the Alter Rebbes’ disciple Reb Aharon Halevi)

2) This essay focused on an egocentric perspective regarding man’s meaning and role in life and how he reaches certain pinnacles of greatness in the context of his relationship to God, but the other perspective that can be used to answer this question comes from His “view” so to speak. If we assume that the ultimate goal here in this plane of existence is to continuously and progressively glorify the name of God in the world, then how does this question and its answers shift?

I would agree, although I thought of it more in terms of paralleling the preservation of Harugei Beitar, or the spices of the caravan that carried Yoseif. I should add something along these lines to the main piece, without which there is no explicit connection between the miracle of oil and exile, to answer how the reinterpreted Chanukah did fit the times.

The full write up: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Si6gicD5GfpIGd3AHQS9s2xijwyyqj4eFigmmrZSqtc/edit?usp=sharing

We’re stuck on different questions, but here is what I want to say:

I think what I would like to see is DH ideas acknowledged in the community. Not embraced, but not ridiculed or suppressed. If you want to make orthodox Jews have an authentically uncomfortable experience – this is the way. No more pretending.

This still leaves room for other conversations of course along the lines of richer, more subtle, orthodoxy.

For most people I know who embrace orthodoxy, it is a way of answering questions. Smugly. Assuredly. Conclusively. The idea of being uncomfortable? No. I don’t see it really. I see OJ presented more as a way of being certain. Maybe we talk to different people, but I think most people don’t have the taste for philosophy you have. What they want are answers. Guidelines. Order. I see this over and over again.

I applaud traditional living. But I will never appreciate the thinking that can’t acknowledge the unpopular voice, the voice of the outsider, or the unorthodox view. I think orthodoxy is weaker for not being able to acknowledge ideas that don’t support the orthodox vision.

I think it leads to all kinds of strange ideas. There are too many to list, but I think it leads even to the insanity of welfare fraud, intimidation of molestation victims and their families, faked up shidduch resumes, agunah crisis, hiding tvs in microwave boxes, high levels of (hidden) depression and anxiety in ultra-orthodox communities, an obsession with tznius, and these are just the most blatant, in the news kinds of things.

I hear Rav Twersky say that OTDers just don’t want to restrict their lives and live the truth – and I want to weep. The solipsism of remarks by leadership is just awful. The impossibility of hearing and acknowledging someone whose real crime is they happen not to see things your way.

Daas Torah has become strange too. In small ways, subtle ways, orthodox Jewish thinking is threatening its own viability. And leaders seem to be even more involved in narrow thinking than the rank and file.

An open society with open inquiry is what changes everything. Just look at the Soviet Union. Black was white and white was black there. Look at Cuba today – prisoner/citizens. The most ridiculous system – presented as superior. Patiently waiting for the demise of the West – where people can come and go as they please. White is black and black is white there.

For some reason, my gut tells me it boils down to this: orthodox Judaism needs to simply acknowledge points of view other than its own. Le them be heard. That would make it an interesting (and safe and dignified) place for a Jew to be.

It would say to people that, while the authoritarianism of fundamentalism is very seductive and in ways attractive, it is just not cool to deny the humanity and dignity of people who don’t think like us. It is just not what a man does.

Tuvia

You wrote: “To me, people who are really educated know that things are not that simple. That religion speaks to simple ideas and feelings that are false and comforting at times.”

I replied to you with a plethora of philosophical references to show that this is only the religion of people who want false comfort, because they prefer easy answers over struggling with the truth. That in fact the religion of someone engaged in critical thought isn’t immature or naive, but well founded on the philosophy of our era. And ironically, skepticism is less so, founded more on Scholastic or Empiricist ideas that philosophers themselves have moved past. And that religion can support critical thought; but you have to look at the critically thinking religious to find it. Not to someone who bought into a kiruv worker’s presentation of Judaism as thought that level of thought were education rather than marketing. People who want to look at things “in a fair way”, do — and in fact the religious ideal encourages it. We are the people who produced two Talmuds, after all.

As for Document Theories, I don’t think they fit within Orthodox Judaism. To explore them would be to explore alternatives, not a richer, more subtle, Orthodoxy. The original post discussed why anyone who followed a halakhah based on the notion of derashah would not find the givens of Documentarianism to be overly convincing, because we found another explanation for the text that actually is consistent for our experience. (And those who didn’t…. well a percentage of Orthodox Jews do end up leaving…)

My final idea is we seem to have a conflict about whether I am overstating the role a closed educational system plays in maintaining the faith of orthodox Jews.

I suppose this is a hard one to pin down. What I think I would like to end on on this topic is that it seems to me that the modern form of the doc hypothesis is kept from orthodox Jews. Those who espouse it – at least some of whom are dressed in the traditional garb of the orthodox Jew – are not encouraged to come in to the community and discuss their findings.

I think when OJ encourages two years of modern biblical criticism in its curriculum – taught by academic scholars who know the subject well and are not hemmed in by a commitment to upholding the dogma of OJ – that will be a great day in Judaism. People will feel proud of how OJ is able to confront its critics head on – so confident are they in their beliefs. Real choice for the people will be the result.

Until that day, I see fear and excuses. And as a Jew, I am saddened. I still (years have gone by since I started study of Judaism) cannot believe how cut off intellectually orthodox Jews are – and yet how certain they are of their ultimate truth. It really is through the looking glass – or inside the Soviet Union – where people were told “communism is obviously superior and the truth, and the West decadent and classist and materialistic.”

But no one inside the Soviet Union could travel abroad to see for themselves. And no one could evaluate things because no books, tv, radio, or newspapers from the outside world were allowed. And those who dared to not agree that communism was obviously superior and the truth were subjecting themselves to internment in a forced labor camp.

I can’t believe you don’t see anything like this going on (particularly in the far right frumkeit of Mea Shearim, Bnei Brak, New Square, Monsey, Williamsburg and parts of RBS.)

Even if I overstate it? There is a good deal of information control inherent in the community.

I just don’t believe that none of this strikes you as controlling. People don’t know what they believe – they are never able to really look at things in a fair way. And like a good party member in the Soviet Union, somehow this is fine with you. And that really makes me fear for the future of Judaism.

I just wish I could understand why thinking orthodox Jews aren’t equally afraid.

Thanks for trying,

Tuvia

And I already showed you how your comments overgeneralize about the role of blind faith, of closed education and much else. If you want to continue both building a strawman and attacking it, you really don’t need me.

“The role of religion is not to provide easy answers, but more productive ways of framing one’s questions”

To me this sounds like an easy out. Because while all religions do this, their larger agenda seems to me to be to announce very specific truths one is expected to believe and follow in order to be a part of the religion.

We would NOT have kiruv proofs and quarrels about science, Jewish history, archaeology, the recent version of the Doc Hypothesis, and more UNLESS each religion had a larger agenda.

We would also not have the indoctrination, the suppressing of outside voices, the fear mongering, the impugning of the outside world.

Whatever solid good comes from finding a productive framing of one’s questions – there is so much more to religious life. The framing of one’s questions part is just not a fair way to characterize what actually goes on in religious indoctrination or dogma.

—

“Second, you fail to admit that the same is true of people who take the religious positions of atheism and deism.”

Let me take the opportunity to admit that deism and atheism are also a bridge too far. We can’t know is probably the honest answer.

But also, I know atheists. They can socialize with believers. They can freely discuss their beliefs and why they hold them. They can marry deists.

Orthodox Judaism does not permit this really. Why?

Let me finally say that it is not the embracing of an aspect of Jewish living, or all aspects, that bother me. It is the intellectual stance of the orthodox Jew that is exasperating (as is the intellectual stance of all other fundamentalists.)

What is really exasperating is how they cannot tolerate exposure to outside voices, outside facts or ideas or ways of thinking.

My friends are all progressive democrats, I am more conservative. We can break bread together and discuss our views. We can try to persuade or point out flaws in each other’s thinking. It’s fine. We can have our viewpoints.

That’s the larger society for you. You can read, think, argue. You can learn and evaluate things.

The orthodox world you are defending does not permit broad education or evaluation. Why?

Tuvia

The role of religion is not to provide easy answers, but more productive ways of framing one’s questions. People who think religion is a set of easy answers are the ones who become come-and-go baalei teshuvah. Your premise about what I believe is flawed.

Second, you fail to admit that the same is true of people who take the religious positions of atheism and deism. We are all equally incapable to objectively prove our positions, and thus end up accepting those proofs that are based on our experiences and that lead to conclusions in concert with it. The allegedly objective is slave to the subjective.

Your position on why to believe represents a trend in Western Philosophy that certainly survived for quite a while — from Greece until the Renaissance — but collapsed in the battles between the Empiricists and the Idealists, and was replaced by Kant’s “Copernican Revolution”. All my talk is not about what feels good as much as what Kant called the synthetic a priori. Google around — others explain what I’m talking about far better than I could.

To me, people who are really educated know that things are not that simple. That religion speaks to simple ideas and feelings that are false and comforting at times. That we crave order (some of us) and religion fills that craving – but that doesn’t mean it’s true any more than it’s true that the perfection someone may feel on cocaine means they are really perfect. More to the point, the idea that one can fly seems to overwhelm people on LSD sometimes – but they invariably go splat if they test it.

I don’t understand how mature adults who are beyond childhood fall prey to the fantastic feelings they have being religious. Prayer, Shabbos, even wearing tzistzis can feel great – why does a great feeling equal a true Torah?

Why does how I feel mean I’m right? If I love my child more than other children, does that mean my child is objectively better? Just because I see it that way? Who cares what I think or feel? Why should I? If my child loses a competition, do I cry foul because, well, he’s mind and he is the best, no matter he came in second to last in the math Olympics? The fix was in?

I understand the deep fulfillment of religion pretty well. I’ve been there. I felt it. I thought to myself: wow. Being a Jew among Jews feels great. Shabbos is high minded and idealistic and I feel it is just terrific.

But: that never made it necessarily any realer than any body else’s ecstatic moment realizing their own self-fulfillment doing something religious. I just can’t take seriously the idea that my feelings are real, and the Southern Baptists are not. He thinks I’m going to burn in a lake of fire unless I accept Christ. He is nuts. I think the Torah has to be true because that’s what I feel – I am nuts.

Haven’t you ever looked in the mirror and thought to yourself: boy I take myself too seriously. I know men (oddly a number of them baal teshuvas) who got so wrapped up in a woman (either their new BT wives or, before they did teshuva, their secular girlfriends) that when the break up came (several I saw with BTs being divorced by their wives early in marriage) they went virtually insane – demanding, controlling, unforgiving, incapable of breaking up. Why is this something that seems to afflict BTs so much? Is it because they have the mentality “I want it to be true, therefore it is”?

Why the childishness from BT men whose wives want out? I’ve never seen anything like it (except one, who agreed with his wife the marriage did not work. They split custody of the child. He went OTD and resumed a typical dating life.)

Is it something in religious folks that, if it is true to them, it is just plain true?

I would really like to hear what you think. I am utterly confounded by my own people. We say something specific took place in the desert over two thousand years ago. Nothing really suggests it happened except we say it happened. There is no reason to embrace it on factual grounds. Every kiruv proof goes wobbly on examination. Why do people embrace it so hard? Why don’t they just acknowledge what we all know: doubtful, certainly not confirmable at this late date. Just not knowable if we are being even more objective and detached.

Why the childlike embrace of something we can’t confirm? With so much certainty?

I am asking you Jew to Jew to explain this to me. It scares me that adults can be so childlike in this way. Is life so hard it just flips a switch in some people who (like two friends of mine who gave themselves over to Christ during life traumas and have never looked back) just embrace regardless of lack of evidence and refuse to expose themselves to anything that might make them reevaluate their faith?

Really interested in some color on these questions.

Tuvia

R JB Soloveitchik agreed with your last paragraph. That is why he resisted all calls to give the rabbis any say in the curriculum of the secular colleges. He felt that the role of YU should be to allow the student to encounter real Western Thought in its full and figure out what they want to do about it. That to edit the experience either means fooling the student into thinking he can live a full and dignified life without encountering the West, or forcing the student to come to their own resolution later in life, without the yeshiva’s resources of people to come to with their questions — nor the university’s.

That said, you have a much more positive opinion of human reason than I do. I believe a person picks those postulates that fit his experience — those are the givens they find self-evident. Then they form lines of reason combining them to reach conclusions, and if those conclusions don’t fit experience they will start questioning their choice of givens or the soundness of their arguments. This was Rabbi Yehudah haLevi’s thesis in much of the first section of the Kuzari. E.g. 1:13:

The Rabbi: That which you describe is religion based on speculation and system, the research of thought, but open to many doubts. Now ask the philosophers, and you will find that they do not agree on one action or one principle, since some doctrines can be established by arguments, which are only partially satisfactory, and still much less capable of being proved.

One of my signature files, the only one that’s a self-quote, reads, “The mind is a wonderful organ for justifying decisions the heart already reached.” This echoes the King of the Kazar’s objection, that for any philosophical position justified by argument, there are conflicting opinions whose adherents claim equally valid arguments.

After all is said and done, I consider the following to be one of the most enlightening comments on religious faith. It was posted by R/Dr Sholom Carmy to the Avodah mailing list here on AishDas.org:

People who throw around big words on these subjects always seem to take for granted things that I don’t.

The people who keep insisting that it’s necessary to prove things about G-d, including His existence, seem to take it for granted that devising these proofs is identical with knowing G-d.

Now if I know a human being personally the last thing I’d do, except as a purely intellectual exercise, is prove his or her existence.

I don’t think the young man feels the power of Shabbos without first understanding that it is a holy day, based on the idea that the Torah is from G-d.

I have no problem with someone embracing all of this. But I don’t think he arrives at these conclusions and feelings in an honest way if he also does not have prolonged exposure to the point of view (and evidence) that shows the Torah was written over centuries by many authors.

The young man should hear both sides, or all sides. My problem with orthodox Judaism is people are forbidden from evaluating its claims. And that the frum world distorts, omits, and suppresses outside information to keep the whole project going.

I don’t mind at all people choosing religion. But it is not taught in a way that would lead one to choose anything – it is taught as a foregone conclusion.

Your idea that the personal feeling one gets doing a mitzvah is valid is also built on the idea that it is valid the person doing the mitzvoth is kept in a bubble of half information – dogma, indoctrination – that informs and colors how he feels about the mitzvah.

It is the same as when the prosecution finishes its case in a trial. For sure, the defendant is guilty! They just showed us! But in the real world, the defense gets to make its case. Followed by cross examination, etc.

If the frum world would permit this kind of search for truth – I would be very admiring of someone steeped in the arguments of both sides who still gets that feeling while keeping Shabbos. But I don’t think the orthodox world can go along with a broad education – and that is a profound weakness.

I do not invoke feeling in the sense of emotion. The distinction between internal experience and emotion is why I invoked the self-evidence of Euclid’s postulates (in a flat space) as a comparison. Do you believe that two lines with the same slope never meet because it makes you feel good? It’s not because of actual experience — there aren’t such things as infinite lines or perfectly straight lines. (Or come down to it, a flat space — thanks to General Relativity.) It’s because you can experience things that aren’t sensory impressions of empirical reality. Some math proofs are found to be elegant or “beautiful”. That discusses two things: the aesthetic judgment of beauty, and that which makes this proof more “beautiful” to the non-eyes of the non-beholder than another proof. I’m discussing the latter not the former.

The second fundamental difference between what you’re discussing and the topic of the post is in your opening words: “I wish to make two points from the secular side…” I said nothing about dialog. Dialog about experiences both parties cannot share is inherently impossible. My discussion was why a believer is sane in not accepting proof that runs counter to his aforementioned religious experience; not how to make the point to another party.

As to whether others cannot admit that this is the basis of their trust in Orthodox Judaism, and instead want to pretend that they’re relying on empirical evidence or logical proof isn’t my problem. Nor, for that matter, R’ Yehudah haLevi’s or R’ Chasdai Crescas’s. Take it up with them and the Rambam.

I wish to make two points from the secular side:

The thing most secular Jews who engage with orthodoxy find frustrating is the fear and inability the haredi have of dialogue with outside voices.

You postulate that feeling halacha’s power in your life is the beginning of understanding the truth of Judaism. But that is not what is really going on in chinuch. What happens is that outside voices can never be heard. What is permitted are show trials, where a rabbi takes the “side” of say, evolution and does a terrible job describing why scientists think it is true, and another rabbi takes the side of tradition and trounces on the Theory of Evolution. And the traditional side wins, every time.

This is just the beginning of the problem. People are quite literally afraid to leave a life of mitzvoth because they have been taught they will pay for it in this world and the next. They do mitzvoth for rewards in this world and the next as well. This a tool of control – of spiritual fear mongering (and it works on a a lot of people, but it is implicitly used as a threat against the vulnerable. An ace in the hole for clergy every where.)

In all, haredi folks are not “trusted” to evaluate anything that might adversely affect their emunah. This does not speak to any degree of confidence in your world – it speaks only to control.

So while you have a nice view of halacha (one I agree with in a sense) what repels secular Jews is the deceitful, omitting, suppressing, distorting tactics of the orthodox world which knows it has the “ultimate truth” but simply cannot afford a sustained, unflinching encounter with the outside world.

My second point is this:

If you are correct, it needs to be pointed out that other religions have their deeply feeling adherents who have their amazing hashgacha pratis stories, their miraculous divine intervention stories, their stories of great depth and feeling that account for their attraction to fundamentalism.

I know a Muslim intellectual who feels almost identical to any Jew I know in his central (and unalterable) identification as a Muslim. These feelings Jews ascribe to themselves with their “pintele yid” stories are not ours exclusively. Isn’t it likely not a spiritual thing, but a psychological one? Are we able to even have that discussion in the frum world?

There are many Jews for Jesus types who will tell you how that religion changed and lifted their lives in ways that felt amazing and also had to be divine (again hashgacha pratis stories galore.)

Why should Jews limit themselves to “feeling” Judaism is the true religion if they can feel that other religions are the truth? How many Jews go to church today as a result of this feeling stuff you are touting? My own father said the only time he ever thought there may be a real, live G-d in the world was at the funeral of a bishop he attended – because the service and church were so beautiful.

My point is this feeling halacha stuff can get a person anywere – including in to “feeling” a life spent surrounded by child sex workers in Thailand “feels so right, how can it be wrong?”

Maybe that’s an exaggeration – but the point is – at least if you put G-d at the top (or Jesus, or Buddha, or Allah, or maybe Stalin or the fuhrer), just add that you are “feeling” its realness and anything goes anyway.

In conclusion:

I will go back to my first point only: the problem we on the outside have with orthodox Judaism is not that people choose to be frum (I admire the lifestyle. I admire the general values. I admire the importance there of life having meaning.) It’s that they deny, omit, suppress and distort outside sources and voices to get there. They can’t dialogue without the outside world, just feel “certain,” based on filling their head with indoctrinating material and cementing it with halachic practice.

It’s not halacha that bothers the secular (everyone has to eat, kosher is a choice and an admirable one.) It is a culture of manipulation and indoctrination (and its fuel, inspiration – fuel of fascists and fundamentalists and jingoists everywhere) and the highest walls of any religion (save the Amish?) that are designed to keep dialogue with outside voices from happening – and avoid the inevitable shattering of the haredi intellectual approach to discerning the truth. An approach that simply cannot afford a genuine encounter with outside ideas or voices.

The walls are very high in haredi Judaism (they seem to be climbing even higher these days.) Isn’t there something suspicious about a system that seeks to persuade people to adhere to it but cannot tolerate the open inquiry which is the hallmark of the Age of Reason?

And why are the walls so high? Because haredi Judaism cannot be transmitted as a choice built on a wide ranging education that includes open inquiry. Haredi Judaism can only be transmitted as a foregone conclusion. And that’s not a confident religion, that’s just a technique for staying in control.

No thought missing. It became the sentences further up in the post that read: “An aspiring halachic decisor needs shimush, apprenticeship, under a skilled poseiq to truly learn the craft. Studying the texts in a formal teaching setting is insufficient.”

But thanks for the heads-up, I cleaned up the partial deletion of the prior version.

Thank you for the clarification. I see now what you meant. On a somewhat connected note, I don’t know why people get so excited about the whole geocentric/heliocentric debate. My understanding is that according to the strict definitions of modern physics, there is no absolute reference point in the universe, which means that any given point can be taken to be stationary. If so, the Torah simply chose the Earth to be its reference point. Heliocentrism is not absolute fact, it’s a reference frame that has proven the easiest to enable calculating astronomical phenomena.

“I didn’t find the distinction between heretic and others who come upon heresy honestly in the Iqarim.”

Unless I’m misunderstanding it, it’s laid down unambiguously in Iqarim 1:2 (sorry for the poor formatting):

או הטהו העיון להכחיש העקר ההוא להיותו
חושב שאיננו דעת ברי תכריח התורה להאמינו
…
אין זה כופר , אבל הוא בכלל חכמי ישראל וחסידיהם אעפ״י שהוא טועה בעיונו
( https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=34496&st=&pgnum=18 ayyen sham )

“And yes, I think I can’t drink the uncooked wine of someone who rebels against the Judaism he was taught in school by taking a position outside the iqarim even if it was once the opinion of someone we respect.”
By “the iqarim” here I assume you mean the same thing as above, meaning, “something in the basic territory of those iqarim,” even if his version of them within the “basic area” is different than exactly what he was taught in school (not for the sake of rebelling, of course, but because he thinks he now knows more than his teachers did).

“It’s not about changes in spelling that don’t impact meaning.”
Perhaps again I am taking you too literally, but it seems like some of these changes would impact meaning, at least to a small degree. Like Dr. Leiman’s example where if I recall correctly, according to the LXX the vorlage of Dvarim 32:8 is “lemispar benei E-l” rather than “benei Yisrael”. Dr. Leiman seemed to indicate, on a publicly available lecture, that according to RDZ Hoffman it’s permissible to consider that this may have been the original girsa, as long as it is recognized that the halachic text may not be altered.

You write, “Ani Maamin seems to be poorly formulated”. I would have said the poet made some choices that lose precision in order to fit his intended poetic structure. But in any case, when I said “Ani Maamin or Yigdal” I was trying not to tie us down to any one text. Rather, I was trying to say that we appear to hold lehalakhah that a convert candidate or someone handling my wine must believe in something in the basic territory of those iqarim; not defining what the iqarim are precisely. So, saying that Yehoshua wrote 8 or even 12 pesuqim (if that’s what you think the IE meant) or even added in other snippets later wouldn’t really change things. The iqar is about the system of thought; changes that don’t impact the system of thought aren’t included. But I should note that I translated the Meshekh Chokhmah on Devarim 28:61, who takes a different approach. The MC suggests that the seifer Torah is a larger text than the Torah, that the last 8 pesuqim are tacked on beyond the Torah itself to teach something about tradition, continuity, and the importance of teaching what you learn. Not to address this question, to deal with the grammar of the pasuq under discussion and the lesson about teaching. But along the way he says the whole machloqes about who wrote those pesuqim is bedavqa because this is an appendix to the Torah, not Torah itself. See there, or at least my blog post translating that part of the MC.

The Iqarim’s definition of heresy differs from the Rambam’s only in his not requiring belief in the messiah. He does require techiyas hameisim though. Perhaps as a nad to Rav Hillel, I don’t know. Rav Albo’s language differs, and that throws people off. To him, an iqar is a postulate, but there are also mandatory shorashim. Add up the iqarim and shorashim, and 12 out of the 13 are covered. The R Yosef Albo would have as much problem with that line from R’ Yehudah haChasid as the Rambam would.

I didn’t find the distinction between heretic and others who come upon heresy honestly in the Iqarim. I did see it in the Radbaz. The Rambam is nearly unique in the Jewish world in tying personal redemption to knowledge. This is a big part of why his critics considered him overly Hellenized. See R’ Hirsch’s 19 Letters, Letter 18. If you follow the Rambam, hen the reason why one doesn’t know the right things isn’t as relevant; someone who doesn’t know G-d can’t participate in His Eternity — no olam. But for the mainstream, the Radvaz’s distinction makes sense, life is all about relationships, middos and ethics and so being a kofeir is about rebellion more than the content of belief. But still, the iqarim themselves would still define heresy, even if a person getting the label “heretic” has to meet more criteria in addition. A kofeir is a rebel, but the iqarim define how far one must rebel to so qualify.

And yes, I think I can’t drink the uncooked wine of someone who rebels against the Judaism he was taught in school by taking a position outside the iqarim even if it was once the opinion of someone we respect.

Last, the 8th and 9th iqarim are about the ideas of the Torah. It includes Oral Torah being a continuous (albeit growing) system of thought from Sinai to today. See the Rambam’s list of examples: It’s not about changes in spelling that don’t impact meaning.

I didnt deny the miracle, I denied the literalness of calling it “stopping the sun”. Which is the navi’s phrasing — “shemesh beGiv’on dam”. It does not say Yehoshua had HQBH stop the earth’s spin, which is apparently what happened.

“IOW, if we prove that sunset is caused by the earth’s spin, then obviously the story of Yehoshua stopping the sun isn’t literal and contradicting what’s proven.”

This sounds to me like you are saying: “Because this miracle is impossible, it cannot have literally happened.” Krias Yam Suf is also impossible. So was the mann. Miracles happen outside the natural order. If I wanted to put it in more materialistic terms, I could claim that Hashem miraculously stopped the earth’s rotation while simultaneously negating any effects inertia would have on its inhabitants (which is really an extension of the exact same miracle of stopping the earth’s spin) – and restarted it again in the same way. But do we even need to, or can we, explain it? It was a miracle, outside the natural order.

IT doesn’t seem like the miracle is any less probable once you consider the earth’s spin than it was when we thought the sun was spinning in a giant sphere and Hashem had to stop it.

You wrote:
“I personally believe that we in practice use the standards of Ani Maamin or Yigdal to decide which beliefs could remove a Jew’s good standing.”

Ani Maamin seems to be poorly formulated, especially the eighth principle. It’s really self-contradictory: If the “entire Torah that is *now* in our hands” is the exact same Torah that Moshe Rabbeinu gave us, then just about every sefer Torah in possession of the Rishonim and Chazal was *not*, since we find many different girsa’os. And conversely, those generations would have been obligated by Ani Maamin to believe that no – only *their* sifrei Torah were authentic, and ours are not. Otherwise, they would have been heretics, according to the wording of the Ani Maamin. This is especially brought into sharp relief when you believe the Ani Maamin is halacha pesukah, and then you come across the Gilyon haShas that lists 22 or more examples where our girsa in Tanakh (including verses in Chumash) differs from that of the Gemara or Rishonim.

I think the nail in the coffin of Ani Maamin’s eighth principle is the gemara that talks about the 3 sifrei Torah that were found in the azara. When the chachomim went “basar rov” – the end product sefer Torah was not like *any* of the three that were found. And we’re talking about whole words, not just chaser and malei.

My next question is: logically, when talking about historical facts – they either happened, or they didn’t. That is why, for example, I am confounded by the Rabbeinu Chananel (and one of the acharonim’s peirushim on Eyn Yaakov – I forget which) “paskening” like the opinion that the Torah was given in Ksav Ashuris and then it was forgotten later, as opposed to the opinion that Ezra was mechadesh it (al pi ruach hakodesh, let’s say). Well, either the Torah was or was not given in Ksav Ivri or Ksav Ashuris. Paskening won’t help change the past – that’s a logical impossibility. What if I decide – as did the Sefer haIkkarim – that the best evidence points to Ksav Ivri being the original?

Now I return to the eighth principle. What if (and this is completely hypothetical) I decide that I am so totally convinced of the truth of the Ibn Ezra’s “sod ha-shneim asar” that I cannot ignore it, and I really really believe that it’s most likely that Yehoshua wrote those pesukim? Would the contemporary expression of halacha pasken me out of klal Yisroel? What about the Ibn Ezra? Also, it was historically one way or another, right?

What about the Abarbanel, who wrote that some parts of the Torah are Moshe’s words via ruach hakodesh (which has a basis in a gemara), which seems to violate the Rambam’s maxim that all words of the Torah have equal status of mipi hagevurah? Now, treading onto even more dangerous ground, what if I *entertain the possibility* that R’ Yehuda haChassid is right, and the Hallel ha-Gadol was originally written in the Torah and then removed by David haMelech? Is that “machsheves apikorsus”? True, it doesn’t really make sense to “decide” that these possibilities have to be true as opposed to the formulation of the Rambam, but apikorsus is assur to even consider as possibly being true.

Personally, I find the Ikkarim’s criteria for heresy much more attractive. A talmid chochom who, through honest analysis and trying to get to the emes, errs and believes something that is apikorsus, it doesn’t give him the status of an apikores. After all, he is not rebelling against Hashem or the Torah, which would seem to be the real crime of the heretic.

I do understand the position that for chinuch and purposes of public discussion, fealty to the 13 ikkarim should be maintained. That seems to be the intent of the Ohr HaChaim haKadosh’s criticism of the Ibn Ezra, where he writes (IIRC) that even though the Ibn Ezra based his comment on the gemara that Yehoshua wrote the last 8 pesukim, “yishtaqa` ha-davar” – meaning – don’t talk about it. Let’s not write about or discuss this opinion, because it can lead to meenus.

It would be, “qeiruv,” anyway, in grammatically correct Hebrew, I believe.

The post I quoted on Miqeitz was about the difference between zeman and eis, yom and shanah, and was exactly about this duality. Time is kind of a spiral staircase — there are yamim of progress, but shanim (which also means “repetitions”) where we revisit “zeman cheiruseinu”, “zeman matan Toraseinu”, etc…. Lakol zeman va’eis… everything has a point in the timeline and a proper position in the revolutions of the process.

So that there are revisits, but each time one layer beyond the last time we were there, not an actual repetition.

My point here was to share a thought I had during R’ Davis’s derashah last Shabbos, when he mentioned Turnus Rufus’s question about giving tzedaqah. So I was writing a part 2, tying the lack of linear side to Turnus Rufus’s question.

The Yefetic conception was of an infinitely old universe. So they couldn’t emphasize progress, nor for that matter entropy, since any process would have run through to completion by now. So instead their world was pretty much constant — only cyclic.

BTW, Turnus Rufus, like most of the Roman soldiers assigned to Judea, was from the Eastern half of the empire, the future Byzantium. Mel Gibson got it wrong when he had them all speaking Latin, they spoke Greek. I think that’s why he was R’ Aqiva’s foil rather than a more Roman Roman.

In contrast, R’ Aqiva thought he was not only within a history that progresses, but near the end of that history. We’re talking about the future armor bearer for Bar Kochva, the man who saw redemption in a fox den on the Temple Mount. Which made him the right person to narrate this principle.

Having followed your link to your previous post, and, in turn, to the blog post of Rabbi Sedley entitled “Dwarves on the Shoulders of Giants”, I really don’t understand the comment you left under Rabbi Sedley’s article. You wrote,
“Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident — Pigmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves.” – Didacus Stella in Lucan 10, tom. ii. (39-65 CE, around the time of Hillel and Shammai).”

Rabbi Sedley cited a book by Robert Merton, On The Shoulders of Giants, which explained in detail that there is no reference to this aphorism in Lucan! This mistake persisted for centuries because no scholar actually looked it up – so you, Micha, are in good company! Merton goes on to say that Didacus Stella – a 16th century Spanish mystic – was referring to the gospel of Luke.

You should at least have provided a source for your comment instead of boasting that you yourself had traced the aphorism to the time of Jesus, not only to save yourself from embarrassment but to reassure any contemporary sources that you wouldn’t think of taking credit for others’ ideas. Personally, I feel uneasy about telling you the provenance and original meaning of the saying, which does predate Judaism and which had absolutely nothing to do with progress or linear time. The metaphor was invented long after the history and science were forgotten! It is like people of the future, with only scraps of books extant, looking at a painting of Adam and Eve and making up a story about an illicit love affair being found out during a picnic.

And the greatest irony of all is that the pride taken in this metaphor, in the absence of historical knowledge, demonstrates why there can be no linear progress. It is because knowledge is lost! Or should I say, it is conveniently, intentionally, destroyed? As sentimental as the concept might be, we do not stand on the shoulders of those who came before. During every political regime change in history, the incoming despots destroy the knowledge of their predecessors. And it takes hundreds of years to recover, if recovery even occurs.

As for your reference to “Plato’s or Axtecian (sic) circular time, in which nothing really changes”, that too is a facile cliche. I used to be so proud of the intellectualism of the Jews but it seems that we really are living on past glory, just keeping our brand alive.

Well, Micha, my advice to you is that whenever you see something worthy in a Greek or Roman author, assume that it was stolen from a more advanced culture.

Out of curiosity, how did you find the Didacus Stella reference?

Yes, “atop the shoulders of giants” does imply progress. It sets to explain how we expect to reach the goal, whereas generations before us, comprised of people greater than us, did not. The whole idea is that even though we are less capable to contribute to moral/spiritual progress than they had, we are progressing from where they brought us to, not from ground zero.

As I wrote, the metaphor is of a decelerating progress.

But in any case, of linear time, of a history that tends toward that goal we midgets still have a hope of reaching. Unlike Plato’s or Axtecian circular time, in which nothing really changes.

Where did I assert “an origin for the notion of progress”? Are you suggesting that the midgets/giants quote is a reference to linear progress?

You should see the quoted post to see more about how I’m taking qedushah and taharah. I didn’t try to start from scratch here.

Qedushah refers to commitment. Therefore, the preposition it takes is “le-“. Something or someone could be set aside for any specific purpose. A woman getting married is committing herself to her husband. And so the formula is “mequdeshes li — committed to me”.

When the cause/goal/purpose is omitted, when we speak of “qadosh” without the “le-“, the default is the purpose for which it was created. Qadosh thus has a derived meaning of “holy” or “sacred”, which also imply committed for G-d’s Purpose.

At some point you have to give up. The point of this blog is to share my thoughts about Torah with other Jews. I can’t worry overly much about how my words will strike someone looking for reasons to hate me. Such as faulting Jews for something people of his own religious background adopted from us.

As for the history of the “atop the shoulders of giants” metaphor, In another blog post I traced it as far back as: “Pigmaei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantes vident. — Pigmies placed on the shoulders of giants see more than the giants themselves.”, Didacus Stella in Lucan 10, tom. ii. (39-65 CE)

Which is far younger than Judaism. Do you know of an earlier source?

Notice, though, that you just also asserted an origin for the notion of progress, albeit decelerating progress, that is far older than colonialism. I think the problem with today’s age is the conflation of our accelerating technological progress with our actual stature.

Huh?

Ironically, your ‘midgets on the shoulders of giants’ quote is far older than Judaism. Do you know its history? As for ‘it’s the anti-Semites’ problem, not mine’, I’ve heard that attitude expressed by my fellow Jews before and it strikes me as highly impractical.

But it’s not only Judaism that has the “midgets atop the shoulders of giants” view of history. So do Christians awaiting Jesus’s alleged second coming, and Moslem awaiting Yom ad-Din and Yom al-Qiyama (the day of judgment and the day of resurrection). If the antisemite is willing to associate Judaism with colonial antisemitism because we adopted this notion of historical (decelerating) progress, then it’s the antisemite’s problem, not mine.

(Embedded in the above is assertion that Zoroastrian messianism comes from the era in which the Jewish prophets were the sages of the Babylonian and then Persian-Median court. As recorded in the latter prophets. And therefore they got the idea from us. There are Christian skeptics who wish to deprecate the idea of messianism by asserting the idea flowed the other way, but it’s not supported by historical fact.)

Luckily your blog isn’t mainstream because anti-Semites don’t make such distinctions. In any case, I don’t know why you would want to claim such a theory. From an historical perspective, it was debunked over 100 years ago. Things don’t move forward, and they most especially don’t improve with time.

The notion that history runs from Adam to the messiah is older than (and in fact motivated) Christianity, never mind colonialism. And it’s a linear, progressive, model of time. The Imperial west may have adopted and adapted the idea for its own purposes, but one can’t say I’m associating Judaism with what racists did with an idea millennia after we developed it.

To associate Judaism with this now well-known racist theory is both wrong and dangerous.

Keeping kosher is one of the mitz-vote. The mitzvote are how we get to the state of k’doosha, as evidenced by the b’rakha we associate with doing a mitzva: it includes the phrase: “ah-sheir kid-sha-noo b’mitz-vo-tahv”.

There is what to add, but in the end, it would only detract.

I love language!

I fail to understand how anyone who studies Jewish history cannot come to the conclusion the Machlokes in generic to Yahadus.

Bottom line “The end of internal divisiveness in the Jewish community will not come” period.

No, it isn’t. That is your (or his) interpretation of the Rambam’s proof. The Rambam brings two pesukim. YOU are the one who is saying that these pesukim are brought as expressions of imitatio dei.

Furthermore, as I stated, the Rambam is not engaged in a discussion about “how we treat others;” he is specifically discussing how we treat outsiders. Of course they are intertwined, but they are nonetheless different topics.

I regret that you are apparently unable to see any other perspectives here such that in your eyes it is entirely “open and shut.”

The Rambam Rav Aharon Lichtenstein cites says that how we treat others is dictated by darkhei Shalom and his proof of that is that HQBH does so.

As I said, it’s so open and shut, I don’t see what exchange there is to have on the subject.

(Aside from his other proofs.)

Sorry, I don’t hear it. Seems to me the Rambam could simply be saying that we do these acts of chesed (the classical acts of chesed as illustrated by the gemara in Sotah) even for goyim, because of darkei shalom, i.e., to avoid getting pummeled. (The Rambam you cite is, after all, located in a discussion of how we treat outsiders, not how to act like G-d in general.)

You asked why I defined darkhei Shalom as “walking the path of the One Who made peace” and yet haven’t yet explained why (1) the Rambam’s derivation of “tov Hashem lakol” and
(2) his applying “darkhei Shalom” to the very same mitzvos the gemara tells us we learn from Hashem’s example in the chumash
do not reflect just such a translation.

You only attacked the other parts of Rav Aharon’s argument that darkhei Shalom is a primary value. But you still haven’t touched the core of the discussion.

“A value called “darkhei Shalom” which the Rambam derives from tov Hashem lakol and from vekhol nesivoseha shalom – from verses that describe Hashem’s ways and the Torah’s nature (respectively). That’s not a discussion of putting our lives at risk, but of imitating G-d and acting the way the Torah calls on us to.”

Says who? Drakheiha darkhei noam is used sometimes to indicate that G-d wouldn’t command us do something painful or unpleasant. That could simply be about our this-worldly concerns, not about G-d’s way of doing things.

“There is really no other way to understand the cited Rambam.”

You have a long way to go to prove that as conclusively as you have stated it. Not that I am averse to the interpretation – I just don’t think you’ve made a strong enough case.

“Does a kohein get the first aliyah (Gitin 59b) in order to prevent people from killing each other over it?

No, but it’s certainly not unreasonable to suggest that these rules are there to prevent people from getting upset, jealous, petty, etc., and to “keep the order.” Again, I don’t think you have sufficiently proven that it is NOT meant this way.

A value called “darkhei Shalom” which the Rambam derives from tov Hashem lakol and from vekhol nesivoseha shalom — from verses that describe Hashem’s ways and the Torah’s nature (respectively). That’s not a discussion of putting our lives at risk, but of imitating G-d and acting the way the Torah calls on us to.

And the Rambam uses darkhei Shalom as the basis of a list of mitzvos that the gemara says are to be learned from Hashem’s example — again, a call to imitate G-d.

There is really no other way to understand the cited Rambam.

And the Rama invokes the idea as a general rule, including a number of contexts that have nothing to do avoiding life-threatening danger. (As the gemara does with mishum eivah.) Does a kohein get the first aliyah (Gitin 59b) in order to prevent people from killing each other over it? That too is “darkhei Shalom“.

I see R’ Aharon Lichtenstein’s conclusion as inescapable.

A vous.

I was just referring to the fact that they found repeated chanting of a pisgam / affirmation can actually change character.

There was no intent to imply that the modality the SciAm article discusses is the same as that R’ Yisrael recommended. Nor that we would apply them in the same situations.

Thanks for forcing that issue to clarity.

Conceptually, I think this is more in consonance with the wording in the pasuq (Bamidbar, Chuqas, 19:20 “×›×™ את-מקדש ×” טימא” — a lack parah adumah is described as prohibiting entry into the Miqdash.

I think it differs from what we Jews would do in the last step: “…and then someone they were in conflict with.” I don’t think that Shmuel Ha-navi would’ve practiced that meditation with Agag, whom he beheaded after Shaul Ha-mellekh spared his life. Having compassion for certain individuals and nations (e.g., Amalek) can be misplaced and wrong. Our Buddhist friends would disagree.

While other religions can sometimes teach us something valuable, we must be mindful (!) of incorrect influences creeping into the Jewish world.

And if you have a source for Rav Salanter saying that Jews should do this, I would very much appreciate it if you would post it.

> How does one get past death, and permitted again to enter the beis hamiqdash?

A very minor comment: If I understand the subject correctly, tum’as meis doesn’t stop the stam Yisrael from entering the Miqdash to the level of the Kheil (d’rabbanan) or further inside (d’o-raita). It’s tum’ah ha-yotza alah mi-goofo (e.g., zav, m’tzora) that prohibits his entry.

The reverse — the Y-mi takes the pressure off!

Hashem will judge favorably a person with a 999 sins and one mitzvah on his account, even if that mitzvah was 999 parts bad ulterior motives!

(I updated the post to try to preempt others from having to ask the questions Neil did.)

Ah-ha. That puts a lot of pressure on me and my multiple motives for doing things. To quote RYS, “Make sure your l’sham shamayim is l’sham shamayim.”

My brother in law old me once that there are over 40 different factors one considers prior to swinging a golf club, l’havdeil.

One mission, yes. But I’m not sure about one desire.

These are mal’akhim created through our actions. So we’re describing 999 sins and one mitzvah of one person.

The title and opening of the post are based on the assumption that the thousand tzedadim of the mal’akh embody the thousand motives someone had for doing some mitzvah (or ch”v v.v.). And therefore the retzonos of these mal’akhim are as complex as the decision the person made to perform the original mitzvah. In our case, only one mal’akh spoke out in his defense, meaning even that one-in-a-thousand mitzvah was done for almost entirely the wrong reasons. Almost entirely. That 1/1000 drop of proper intention in one mitzvah was enough to save him despite the 999 aveiros.

“R’ Bana’ah would say: Anyone who toils in Torah lishmah, his Torah becomes an elixir of life (sam chaim) for him. As it says ‘Eitz chayim hi… — It is a tree of life for those who grasp it.’ (Mishlei 3:18) And it says ‘It will be cures for your leaders.’ (v. 8) And it says, ‘Those who found me found life.’ (ibid. 8:35). Whereas anyone who toils in Torah but it is not lishmah, it becomes a poison (sam maves) for him….”

There is still reliabilism — trusting information from trusted sources. Like the way most people believe in most of the things they know. E.g. very few people actually saw something evolve. We believe in evolution because we developed a trust in textbooks, certain magazines and news sources, etc…

And reliabilism WOULD state that if sources you trust say there is something there and yet you have tried Shabbos, or learning Torah, or…. and havent’ found it, that you would assume the flaw was in your attempt. IOW, that you should continue looking for it until you find a Judaism that works.

But I was speaking of philosophical proof vs evidence, not of reason. People don’t really need things to have an airtight proof in order to hold of them. That’s an abstraction.

Einstein thought that the gedanken experiment had merit. And for that matter, you only know the Euclidean postulates by mental experience. You never encountered two infinite lines of the same slope. Nor even a flat Euclidean space. And yet the intuition that such lines would never meet is deemed reliable, no?

Your example is flawed in that it invokes an emotion, not a mental assessment of truth. My argument is not that one should believe because they enjoy Shabbos. But that the reality of a G-d-given Shabbos is as self-evident to someone who does Shabbos right as the reality that two parallel Euclidean lines won’t cross is to someone who contemplates such lines.

We develop a fear of falling because we perceive with our senses that falling leads to pain. We then ‘produce postulates’ based on these facts to apply to our lives. Should we find truth in mental experiences too? Absolutely. For example, ‘when X happens I feel sad – therefore, I will deal with X to prevent sadness.’ We can deduce that X makes us feel sad and this can be demonstrated scientifically.

However, someone who grows up in a culture in which they are indoctrinated from birth that when X happens, you feel sad because supernatural Y is punishing you – they might believe that. However, there is no scientific indication or truth that Y actually exists. All that can be drawn from event X is that the individual feels sad.

There is nothing wrong with making postulates based on real experiences that can be proven and that are logical. But to assume that the feelings felt due to indoctrination from a young age that are not provable scientifically and have no indication that they exist is foolish. This especially true when biology can explain why one would think these experiences are real when in fact they aren’t.

“Simply, we trust ourselves, particularly after repeated experience. ”

This is foolish. Look at the religious experiences we have and you’ll see that they are very likely imaginary.

Now what would you say to a religious individual, such as myself, who experiences shabbos and halacha and Torah and still does not feel the authenticity of Judaism. Even when things feel real doesn’t mean they are. In fact, most Muslims (at least in my experince) will tell you the proof that Islam is the true religion is the Quoran. They say “The beauty of the Quoran makes it impossible to have been man-made. The Quoran is clearly the truth…”

What makes you think that these emtional and spiritual highs you get when keeping shabbos and studying Torah are any different than the ones that Muslims experience when they study and practice? In truth, there is a strong biological basis for religion and the need for spirituality. Maybe these experiences you are so sure you have are all in your mind?

Based on your article there is no reason for a jew to be shomer torah and mitzvos if it doesn’t fel real to him or her.

This is an example of why I wrote that I was following the Rambam for the first 40 generations. I couldn’t make it all work out, so I appealed to authority.

In this case, Chazal say that the Pinechas of the desert generation is the same Pinechas who failed to prevent the battle of the Pilegesh beGiv’ah, meaning that he could well have lived from Yehoshua all the way to Shemuel. (This long life is part of the Zohar’s discussion that he is Eliyahu.) But that kind of fantastical medrash is just the type of story the Rambam says only fools and heretics (out to make the Torah look silly) take as a historical claim. Which is why, as I opened, I have no idea how to explain it myself, and instead am blindly following the Rambam.

Except that I don’t think I ever wrote a Moshiach ben Yoseif article.

What I meant by a “higher level of HP” was a higher status in the beinoni-tzaddik continuum that would qualify one for treatment more weighted to his personal deeds. Someone with a lower status could gain better treatment by supporting such a person, knowingly or unknowingly.

I actually did understand RCF differently. He says (pp 82-83) the Ramban holds that HP is earned. He doesn’t mention what I said, that the Rambam holds that HP is universal across all people (Moreh 3:17) — but not all homo sapiens are equally people (ch. 18). Pretty much the same thing as the Ramban, but a different explanation of how it’s proportional to attachment to G-d, and what constitutes attachment to G-d. (As per my earlier bit about how the Rambam intellectualizes man’s goal more than anyone else does).

In contrast, RDF shows the Ramaq (pp 83-87) as an example of someone (not a rishon, but pre-Gra / Besht) who champions HP for all people. This is the opinion the Rambam attributes to Chazal (ch. 17), which is why he needs to take his route to proportional HP — so that it doesn’t outright contradict them.

But I didn’t see RCF picking sides.

What you call a higher level HP I think is more accurately termed hashgachah kelalis. IOW, a person may have a tailored outcome even when he doesn’t deserve that kind of attention because that outcome plays a critical role in Hashem’s big plan.

RCF talks also about direct vs indirect causality, which I didn’t follow well enough to have a real opinion about. The same is true with my lack of clarity on his source — the Kuzari 5:20.

I suggest that you read through RCF’s analysis again to see if I captured his message accurately.

On your other point, concerning the Rishonim, I have the sense that the definition of HP according to RCF may not be theirs or the most common defintion.

Also, your #1 is a necessary consequence of belief in sechar va’onesh.

I also wonder why RCF would assume the position of those rishonim who say HP is earned over those who say it’s universal to people (but not to objects, plants or animals).

In like fashion, the rest of creation would be treated according to utility, as in 2. above. For non-Jewish nations, the treatment would be routed through their princes (angels assigned to them).

My intent was not new-age at all.

1- “Tam” isn’t used yet as a negative term when the Hagadah was written. Yaaqov is described as an “ish tam yosheiv ohalim”, and R’ Yaaqov the Tosafist is therefore called Rabbeinu Tam. The piyut we say on Yamim Noraim describes G-d as “haTam umetameim im temimim.” Neither is plausible if “tam” had a negative connotation even as a different usage. What kind of honorific is it if the term could be used in ridicule as well?

The Y-mi has the third son as “tipeish”, and I think the Bavli intentionally chose “tam” so as NOT to be negative.

2- What motivated the post, was reading R’ Dov Kramer’s (“Davenin’ Dov Kramer” to WFAN listeners) blog post at https://rabbidmk.posterous.com/pesach-5773a while in the middle of working my way through the Ramchal’s original dialog version of Mesilas Yesharim. In his first version, the Ramchal makes it a dialog between a Chakham and a Chasid. Mapping “chasid” to “tam” came naturally.

Sorry, I don’t see how it’s the same topic. I’m not talking about Pesach, matzah or maror, and RYYLB’s point about the intermix of reliving the bad times along with the good doesn’t minimize the need for haqaras hatov when looking at that good.

So, I am missing the contrast you’re trying to make.

See the conflicting view at:

https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=41998&st=&pgnum=55

https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=41998&st=&pgnum=56

That is true in general, and is certainly the case in terms of his key dispute with the CI over the shiur agudal, but not in terms of his rather unique chumros in calculating the shiur kezayis for matzah.

FWIW, RCN wasn’t so much coming up with a shitah as formalizing what was already accepted practice in Yerushalayim in his day.

R. Micha – My apologies. If there was any lack of clarity, it was on my part. I don’t take issue with anything you’ve said, besides for the way you originally characterised the kezayis issue. All I was pointing out was that R. Chaim Naeh’s opinion is actually not the ‘bottom-line’ consensus, and there are several reasons for this (his Dirham measurement was wrong – https://www.yeshiva.co/ask/?id=4348, he didn’t include the gaps in matza which most poskim do – https://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=49102&st=&pgnum=19, and there were quite a few Asheknazi poskim who at least gave some weight to the volume of contemporary olives in their measurements, amongst other factors).

J, if you think the point of the issue is whether there are halachic grounds to be meiqil, then my whole post wasn’t clear.

I’m arguing against this trend deciding halakhah for themselves what’s reasonable, because:
1- “reasonable” isn’t necessarily based on halachic, legal, thinking, and
2- it’s too often based on ulterior motives.

In the case of the kezayis. People who don’t enjoy eating large amounts of matzah will want proof that a kezayis matzah is less than what we’re being told. They therefore take to an argument they see in a booklet written by someone who doesn’t “do halakhah” where the primary thrust doesn’t even have to do with halakhah. But they want larger shiurim to be absurd, and this booklet validates that.

My greatgrandfather, who learned full time and had a kloiz in Suvalke ate kezeisim far smaller than what’s in the books. A cousin of my grandfather’s generation had the zekhus of being in the homes of a number of gedolim around Lithuania and Northern Poland, and never saw such kezeisim. My grandfather (on the other side) told me that his father, Rav Yisrael Avraham Abba Krieger, who held the rabbinate of Kashduri (Lithuania), Frankfurt-am-Main (the Orthodox Gemeinde community) and Boston, who spent the second part of his childhood in the Or Sameiach’s home, at his table the kezeisim were smaller.

So I think there is, a valid argument for smaller kezeisim. Even if I didn’t present it.

My problem isn’t with the result, but with the methodology.

I have no problem with someone who feels a certain ruling makes more sense than what’s in the books talking it out with his rav, and making sure that the ruling is one for him to follow. But for someone who never had his skill at hora’ah checked out to make such a decision on their own… It has to do with an unwillingness to submit, to at times do things that make less sense to me because I trust that they make more sense by some objective standard.

Time for me to hone the text. After the next round of Pesach cleaning…

(As a historical point, the actual universal acceptance of the Tamud Bavli as the final word on what Chazal say (when the Bavli actually has an opinion) posr-dated the Rambam. Ashkenaz still had a large population from Eretz Yisrael who were loyal to minhagim from that area. In fact, even to this day Ashkenazim do some things that fit the Yerushalmi or the medrashei halakhah better than they conform to the Bavli. But the Bavli didn’t become THE Gemara in Ashkenaz until the Tosafists. Which is why they were the first to show a struggle between the gemara’s content and (locally) accepted halakhah)

If you read a source, and it seems compelling to you that he MUST have meant X, whereas the tradition veered toward understanding him as saying Y (maybe calling it X’ is more indicative of reality) do you take him as he seems to obviously say, or not?

Look again at my example of the Rambam and the mishnah, or the Rambam overthrowing the interpretations of geonim when he was certain they erred.

Let’s take a more extreme case, which I’m hoping to collect enough sources to make its own blog post… Lets say we get a new manuscript, and find out that the word “lo” was missing from a difficult Rambam. And let’s say acharonim found a way to make sense of the text as we have it, and ruled as per this ammended Rambam. Do we switch rulings?

Is the Meiri, a rishon whose text was unavailable to acharonim until the mid-20th cent, have the authority of any other rishon? Can we even overturn the Rama to hold like the Me’iri? (And there is a reason why I picked the Rama as an example — but I’ll leave it as a teaser for that future possible post.)

Rambam could have had reason to use an Aristotelian construct but not based on Aristotle’s own logic.

But Aristotle doesn’t. IOW, the Rambam mapped mal’akhim to an idea Aristo had for reasons that were wrong. So why maintain the mapping?

Yes, it could be an explanation for why the Rambam would still say you need mal’akhim. But the entire structure of intellects comes from Greece, not Torah. He says so himself (as quoted in the post).

Also, the world could have been created with one ma’amar, not ten. Maybe Rambam sees a parallel situation that requires a set of contractive steps.

I wrote, as you quoted me, “gratitude is a moral value preceding the Divine command”. You then ask: “Does this mean that the Rasag and Rabbeinu Bahye believed in a) something existing outside of Hashem, b) something besides Hashem’s Will binding on us (and possibly Him)?” But I didn’t say that it precedes Hashem or His Will, but rather that it precedes His command. Not that “morality” is simply doing what He commanded, but it is also doing the Divine Will that led to those commands. IOW, that there is a morality and a behavior Hashem expects of us other than “Do My mitzvos”, from which the mitzvos logically follow.

You then conclude, “One can also believe, at the same time, that our nature was created by Hashem, including our desires to survive, to seek pleasure and avoid suffering, and to do what’s morally good. The fact that we know where our fundamental desires come from doesn’t deny the fact that we have no choice but obey them, since they define us.” This is very similar to the thesis of this blog entry. My wording was, “I would argue that HQBH created the world with a tachlis, a purpose, He placed each of us in it with a tachlis, and what is righteous is righteous because it is in accordance with furthering that tachlis.” You speak of morality being how we were made, part of who we are, and I’m arguing morality is following the goal for which we were made.

R’ Saadia Gaon and Rabbeinu Bachya are calling our duty to feel gratitude something other than a mitzvah, because to them it’s the motivation for keeping the mitzvos. The niche I’m giving it is that gratitude is part of the goal for which Hashem made man in a way that is logically prior to any of the 613. And thus doing His Will — but not “simply” because it’s a specific one of the 613.

And then I ask why Hashem having a plan in creating us should obligate me to fulfill that plan. “In order for my moral choice to have any meaning, I must assume my actions have value. Otherwise, what difference does it make which actions I choose to perform? If I believe my actions have value, I am assuming my existence has value, since it makes those actions possible. And thus, presumed in the very quest for morality is the notion that the purpose for which I was created imparts value.”

I find this extremely problematic. Does this mean that the Rasag and Rabbeinu Bahye believed in a) something existing outside of Hashem, b) something besides Hashem’s Will binding on us (and possibly Him)? Or did they just make a circular argument (we should follow G-d’s Will because of the moral principle of gratitude, and we should follow moral principles, because they are G-d’s Will)? I.e., did they state what seems to me like appikorsis or did they make a logical mistake?

Maybe they were assuming as an axiom that people have certain inborn fundamental desires that define them and that they pursue for no reason. E.g., a desire to continue existing. A desire to seek pleasure and avoid suffering. And a desire to do what’s morally good. And, just like one can know from his hunger and thirst that he needs to eat and drink to survive, one can know from his moral intuition what good is. And since people know from their moral intuitions that being grateful is good, they can also know that being grateful to Hashem is good, and, therefore, that following mitzvos is good.

One can also believe, at the same time, that our nature was created by Hashem, including our desires to survive, to seek pleasure and avoid suffering, and to do what’s morally good. The fact that we know where our fundamental desires come from doesn’t deny the fact that we have no choice but obey them, since they define us.

That’s one way I see out of this. Unless you say that they didn’t believe that saying that something is binding on Hashem is appikorsis. (Maybe one could argue that morality is like logic. I.e., Hashem created His Universe with a certain fundamental reality. Included in that are logical constraints. Hashem cannot make 2+2 equal 5 and for “that” to remain an aspect of our Universe. Hashem also cannot make something immoral moral or vice versa.)

If you were fully capable, in the situation you were then in, of choosing the right goal, perhaps yes. If not, no. For whatever reason, you could have been less than fully aware of the right goal at that time. Your lack of readiness then may or may not have been your fault. I recall reading that certain events like Chet Ha’Egel were made to happen because a lesson about teshivah had to be imparted.

Wouldn’t that be an example of my 2nd bullet item? I am at fault for choosing the wrong goal?

Mishlei 24:16:
כִּי שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם וּרְשָׁעִים יִכָּשְׁלוּ בְרָעָה:
For a righteous man can fall seven times and rise, but the wicked shall stumble upon evil.

Which brings an interesting light in this context to the next pasuq. Perhaps it makes the point I said in reply to Amy, if we take the lack of rejoicing to be all part of bitachon not working in the third person. v. 17:
בִּנְפֹל (אויביך) [אוֹיִבְךָ] אַל תִּשְׂמָח וּבִכָּשְׁלוֹ אַל יָגֵל לִבֶּךָ:
When your enemy falls, do not rejoice, and when he stumbles, let your heart not exult..

No, you chose the right goal and the desired outcome in the bigger picture was failure on your part because it will lead to great overall success in the future.
Again, look at Moshe Rabeinu right after his first meeting with Pharoah.

And understand that if I seem like I’m summarily dismissing your suggestion, perhaps it is just that I am not emotionally ready for its resolution yet.

My post obviously wasn’t clear, as all the comments so far touch on one point that I felt I had addressed. I’m emending the post by reformatting one sentence and elaborating as follows (repeating here for commentors who are getting replies by email):

So, if I am not succeeding, there are really only two possibilities. Either
1- I am not carrying my own side of the partnership. In which case, Hashem gave me the best chance of success and I made some wrong choice along the way. Or
2- I have a false definition of “success”. I chose the wrong goal, the wrong thing to try to succeed at. Again, the mistake was all mine.

I would also address Amy Rosen’s comment on a second level. As I wrote in an earlier post:

When the Brisker Rav taught [the idea that every middah has its role], a student challenged him with some middos that seem the antithesis of Jewish worship.

Apiqursus (heresy). How can it be used positively? As we’ve been saying — for me and mine, I can have bitochon (trust [in the A-lmighty]) that everything that happens is as it should be. On another’s account, one needs to be an “apiqoreis” [(heretic)] and not rely on Hashem’s help.

Krumkeit (warped reasoning). …

Bitachon only works in the first person, not the third. When it comes to myself, I trust that everything is turning out according to G-d’s plan. When watching the lives of others, I shouldn’t be thinking about Hashem’s plans, and just try to make their lives better (in our usual, more obvious, ways). Bitachon fails in assessing someone else’s poverty.

When your efforts do not succeed, failure might be due to insufficient effort; or it might be despite normally-sufficient effort, and due to the goal running counter to the Divine Plan—and you can never (well, hardly ever) tell which it was that caused the failure.

Does this sound at all plausible?

Doesn’t believing G-d is maximizing my chance for success minimize my role in any successes? In other words, I don’t see how your first sentence helps me deal with my dilemma.

The rest of your comment strikes me as nearly Izhbitz. Izhbitz Chassidus teaches that the only thing I have free will about is my internal mental attitude. The only real sin is thinking that I actually defied G-d’s will. They have very interesting things to say about teshuvah and about doing an aveirah lishmah that I never really understood. But it limits my culpability or credit to how I myself turn out. I have problems with such a limited definition of bechirah, it seems to be so un-“gadlus ha’adam”.

I seem to have made a career of asking the less important question!

1) But is there an underlying theme to all the middos? Do they all come back to emulating G-d?

2) When we say the 13 middos of compassion of God, is that a different part of middos development because O”T and M”H don’t really seem to focus on them?

3) Is Hilchos Dayos in the rambam and his Shvil Hazahav the template for all middos that are included in O”T and S”H? If you have time to answer this I’d appreciate it. Thanks, Dovid

Because that’s something we can actually do something about!

I probably mean “hashqafah” (and will correct the post accordingly). But I mean the Judeo-English word “kiruv”, not the original Hebrew. My intent is all the implications of the extant movement and outreach industry, not the abstract concept of drawing Jews closer to Hashem and His Torah.

See “In the Beginning” bby Aviezer

The translation is “The Book of Divine Power” translated by S. Mallin. I think they just reprinted it. Check it: https://www.amazon.com/Rabbi-Yehuda-Leove-ben-Bezalel/dp/B000RZNJQA/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358149434&sr=1-2&keywords=the+book+of+divine+power

We have our understanding and Hashem has his. There is no guarantee that they are the same. We see the world in one way. Does this mean that this is the way the world really is? It could look entirely different to Hashem.

I am bringing arguments against what I see as you making a mountain out of a mole hill, WADR.

In any case, you’re just bringing more arguments against what R’ Hirsch wrote. Did you follow the link I gave you, or skim the first part Collected Writings III yourself?

R. Micha wrote, “I can’t believe that Hashem’s goal in commanding those specific mitzvos requires my knowing that goal.”

Can any human being really understand Hashem’s thoughts and goals? I really doubt it. We may come up with insights about all sorts of things, but are they really THE insights of Hashem. To think so would be, IMO, really presumptuous on our part.

There are many things that have happened in my life that I do not understand, and I am convinced I will never understand. A mensch tracht un Gott Lacht!

My problem is that the symbolism, because it must be studied to be of value, doesn’t answer the question it was proposed for.

Say we say Hashem commanded esrog because of some alignment of the olamos ha’asiyah and hayetzirah or some such. Or that it operates on the soul or the psyche in ways we don’t understand, but are evident (or not) in retrospect. Such explanations presume that the mitzvah accomplishes Hashem’s goal in commanding this particular act even when the person doesn’t know the explanation.

I can’t believe that Hashem’s goal in commanding those specific mitzvos requires my knowing that goal. And so, I do not believe that R’ Hirsch’s symbol system gives us a way to understand the function of various mitzvos and their dinim. They’re nice thoughts on R JB Soloveitchik’s “lessons we can take away from the activity” sense of taamei hamitzvos, but that’s not what R’ Hirsch said he was doing.

R. Micha wrote, “but the whole point of Horeb, the Collected Writings III, and much of his commentary on Chumash is to leave you with such knowledge! I’m saying that because the reason for people who don’t know RSRH’s symbol system is still a closed book, it fails at what it sets out to do.”

But the rest of his Collected Writings have little in them about symbolism and most of his commentary on the Chumash except for Yayikra does not have much symbolism in it.

I have to say that despite all of this back and forth, I do not understand what your problem is with RSRH’s writings.

One has choice, study the symbolism or not. If one does not study the symbolism there is still a world of wonderful ideas and insights to learn from.

What I critiqued was a system that does purport to explain the “why” of mitzvos. So what if its author elsewhere plays down the need to know that “why”? How does that change questions about whether the answer is sufficient to the question?

Or, as I wrote in the text you quoted, “the value — not the obligation, but the taam — of doing the mitzvah if you don’t know his symbol system”. So, yes, you should continue doing it without knowing a reason; but the whole point of Horeb, the Collected Writings III, and much of his commentary on Chumash is to leave you with such knowledge! I’m saying that because the reason for people who don’t know RSRH’s symbol system is still a closed book, it fails at what it sets out to do.

Doesn’t Rav Hirsch’s statement quoted above, namely, “Even, therefore, if every
divine precept were a riddle to us … the obligatory power of the commandments
would not in the slightest degree be impaired …. We should have to perform them, not
because there was this reason or another for any commandment, but
because God had ordained it.”, make it clear that just doing a mitzvah is its value?

For example, you wrote above, “To rephrase the question around another example: What does Rav Hirsch believe is the value of basar bechalav to people who don’t know anything about an association to keeping human creativity separate from animal procreativity? Did the more than 99 44/100% of the observant Jewish population over the history of time gain nothing from obeying the issur because they didn’t know the key to the symbol and thus didn’t get the truth being communicated?”

The value is the keeping of the mitzvah, because he says that even it we did not understand anything about why we should keep it, we would have to keep it. Doesn’t a person get reward for observance? He most certainly does! This is the value of the mitzvah, its eternal reward.

1- No. I don’t think the impossibility of dialog between faith communities means we can’t learn anything from non-Talmudic pundits. Be it R’ Yisrael Salanter’s backing the dissemination of R’ Mendel Satonover’s adaptation of Ben Franklyn’s work, Rav Dessler summarizing some Dale Carnegie, Rav Hirsch showing congruence between some of Schiller’s thoughts and the Torah, … The precedent is otherwise.

2- If the blogger is outright quoting those pundits, what kind of “hidden agenda” would it be? There is nothing surreptitious going on in hiding.

Again, you are defending the man, not the theory.

Where in his taamei hamitzvos theory is there anything that explains the value — not the obligation, but the taam — of doing the mitzvah if you don’t know his symbol system?

And since I can’t find one, I searched for different theories of taamei hamitzvos.

I am not saying that Rav Hirsch didn’t believe such value exists, or that we shouldn’t be doing mitzvos whose value is purely that of obedience. I said he didn’t provide me with a usable explanation of the value of mitzvos, and therefore as a system for finding kavanah when acting, it rings hollow to me.

In Horeb, Hirsch adopted [Michael] Creizenach’s [leader of the Reform party in Frankfurt] idea and composed his own encyclopedia of Jewish law. In contrast to his predecessor Hirsch attempted to attain a spiritual understanding of Jewish law without infringing upon the significance of ritual practice: “Even, therefore, if every
divine precept were a riddle to us … the obligatory power of the commandments
would not in the slightest degree be impaired …. We should have to perform them, not
because there was this reason or another for any commandment, but
because God had ordained it.” The practice of law could not be affected by
the search for spiritual understanding. Hirsch, therefore, returned to a traditional
distinction in Jewish learning between the study of law and of legend.
But in Hirsch’s formulation, aggadah became identified with that specific
endeavor of providing legal practice with spiritual meaning: “There will
accordingly be two spheres of thought engaged in the exposition of the
divine law, differing only in the sources from which they draw their knowledge.
One school will concern itself with the comprehension of the utterances
regulating our practical conduct and with the lessons also concerned
with practice, that can be derived almost exclusively from the tradition….
The other school will concern itself with reflecting and pondering on the
law, and its source of knowledge will be the illuminating power of insight
which dwells more or less within each individual.” Critical control over
these subjective interpretations was to be provided by the specific details of
the ritual: “The more closely a view regarding any law corresponds to the
component part of the law .. . such that it can be represented as embodying
the basic idea through which all the details of the law can be coordinated … the more will such a view commend itself to us.”

On this topic, let me ask you: If a blogger extensively interpolates his thoughts and comments with non-Talmudic “pundits”, don’t you think that website does a great disservice to Hashem and Judaism and Torah; As if we have to know what others are eating – as if what we have on our table, full of delicacies, is inadequate!

Would you not suspect, under such condition, the blogger may well have a hidden agenda?

2- It’s irrelevent when discussing a sentence that started with “according to the Rambam”. Discussions of whether we follow the Rambam, ought to be following the Rambam, etc… have nothing to do with answering Tzurah’s question about the Rambam’s position and elitism.

The Rambam himself does hold like the Rambam, even according to R/Dr Melech Shapiro.

And what do you do with Marc Shapiro’s essay

Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles: The
Last Word in Jewish Theology?

available at download.yutorah.org/1993/905/704648.pdf ?

We’re now retracing steps I took with Dr Levine. I’m not assessing R’ Hirsch’s beliefs, but the usability of his symbology system to answer the question of taamei hamitzvos. R’ Hirsch could well have believed in other sources of value that for some reason he didn’t think was a message for his target audience. But that doesn’t add usability to the symbol idea.

According to the Rambam, the minimum knowledge of G-d necessary to get something out of the Jewish project is the 13 Iqarim. They’re listed in his explanation of the mishnah, “All of Israel have a portion toward the World to Come”, in particular defining who qualifies as an Israelite in good standing with regard to this mishnah. So the Rambam’s demand is very minimal, in that every non-heretic would qualify.

I’ve only read through snippets of Horev, but I have read through most of the multivolume Chumash commentary, so I’ve read a decent amount of his discussions of various symbols, but I never got the sense the RSRH considers there to be absolutely no benefit to Jews doing mitzvot while lacking in this knowledge. Do you have a “money-quote” showing that RSRH takes such a strong all-or-nothing approach?

But then again, let’s take the extreme position and say that the only value of the masses of unleaned Jews performing mitzvot is to carry on the tradition, so that those more learned that come after them may benefit by having their conscious mind trained towards God through mitzvot. Is that any worse than the Rambam’s elitism, which is simplisticly put, that “the role of mitzvot is to enable one to better know God, and if you don’t manage to achieve that, then too bad”?

I also do not know how someone who read the original blog entry could ask, “Does Rav assert that *his* insights into the meaning of mitzvos is their ‘primary meaning’?” Number 5 on my survey of approaches is R’ Solovetichik’s, which I characterized as specifically not looking for meanings of mitzvos as much as post-facto lessons we can take from those mitzvos. Contrast this to Horeb, the first third of Collected Writings III or even the two short quotes of the latter I retyped above — R’ Hirsch presents what he claims to be primary meanings, not post-facto lessons.

Tzurah, there is a difference between saying that mitzvos have increased value when performed by someone knowledgable with proper kavanos, etc… and giving a primary meaning for mitzvos that only holds true for knowledgable people. One speaks of proportional value, the other is all-or-nothing.

Another difference is that R’ Hirsch’s value depends on knowledge of a symbol system. The person can be very committed to doing Hashem’s Will, but being non-Hirschians they happened to never have learned his semniotics. Their mitzvos must have some value, but Hirschian Symbology isn’t its source. Thus implying that there is a different source of value to performing mitzvos other than R’ Hirsch’s.

But isn’t this the case for most theories of halachah? Both the Kabbalists and Rambam (along with RSRH) agree that the *full* benefits of observing mitzvot are only enjoyed by an elite.

R. Micha wrote, “I’m not. I’m arguing that RSRH’s perspective doesn’t speak to me, because it suggests that the primary meaning of mitzvos only provide that meaning for a small minority.”

I suspect, but I am not sure, that you are misunderstanding RSRH’s perspective. When you send me writings of RSRH that say what you assert they say, then we can debate further.

Does Rav assert that *his* insights into the meaning of mitzvos is their “primary meaning”?

But in any case, I do not understand your words “Why are you assuming that mitzvos are meaningful only when viewed from RSRH’s perspective?” I’m not. I’m arguing that RSRH’s perspective doesn’t speak to me, because it suggests that the primary meaning of mitzvos only provide that meaning for a small minority.

R. Micha wrote, “Rav Hirsch says that mitzvos gain their meaning from their being the transmission of lessons from Hashem to us via the use of symbols. He also says that while some symbols have innate meaning, most are the product of convention.”

Where does he say this? Quotes please.

R. Micha also wrote, “Were mitzvos given in order to be meaningful to just a small minority of the Jewish people, and Hashem didn’t intend the overwhelming majority of mitzvah acts to benefit the world or the person performing them?”

Why are you assuming that mitzvos are meaningful only when viewed from RSRH’s perspective? They can be meaningful to an individual from a variety of perspectives.

R. Micha wrote, “You seem to still be discussing the functionalist question — what motivates me to observe.” No, what motivates me to observe is that they are commanded. The observance can be meaningful for a person for all sorts of reasons. There are those who find davening on Shabbos meaningful, because of the singing in shul. This is just one example.

The online Webster’s dictionary gives “significant” in its definition of meaningful. Based on this one can say that a tragic experience is meaningful (significant) even if one cannot understand why it happened.

I’m not sure what you’re saying, and It seems I’m missing something that also left me befuddled with R Bob Miller’s comment.

Rav Hirsch says that mitzvos gain their meaning from their being the transmission of lessons from Hashem to us via the use of symbols. He also says that while some symbols have innate meaning, most are the product of convention.

It seems we are in agreement that such meaning would only be true of people who were taught that convention, and therefore are capable of internalizing the lesson. And that such people are a small minority of the generations of Jews who observe the mitzvos.

You write “For those who do not know about it it has no value. For those who do, there is value. I fail to see why this is a problem at all.”

Were mitzvos given in order to be meaningful to just a small minority of the Jewish people, and Hashem didn’t intend the overwhelming majority of mitzvah acts to benefit the world or the person performing them?

You seem to still be discussing the functionalist question — what motivates me to observe. I agree that “ana avda deQBH should be sufficient motivation.” But taamei hamitzvos is about a theological question — getting at least pieces and aspects of Hashem’s motivation for commanding these particular acts.

R. Micha wrote, “So again I ask, if most observant Jews did and do not know Hirschian symbols, how can these ideas be taam hamitzvah for them? There is no value coming from the Horeb system for the vast majority of mitzvah performances.”

For those who do not know about it it has no value. For those who do, there is value. I fail to see why this is a problem at all.

RBM: I don’t know of R’ Hirsch saying anything outright about a lack of cosmic or practical value. I am only commenting on his system of attributing value through symbolisms. It could well be RSRH also held there were other sources of value. But that doesn’t redeem his symbology approach.

R/Prof Levine: I’m not sure what you mean. RSRH writes about the function of mitzvos at length — aside from random other mentions, this is the thesis of both Horeb and Collected Writings vol III. Yes, my motive should simply be “ana avda deQudeshah berikh Hu”, but R’ Hirsch is explicitly telling you there is something else you get out of mitzvos. Not in the sense of motive, but he certainly does assert that most mitzvos inclucate through symbols. And also that most symbols are meaningless without the two sides agreeing on their meaning. So again I ask, if most observant Jews did and do not know Hirschian symbols, how can these ideas be taam hamitzvah for them? There is no value coming from the Horeb system for the vast majority of mitzvah performances.

“The problem I have with this, which eventually alienated me from my earlier love of Horeb, is that symbols are only of value to those who are aware of them. Anyone who isn’t aware of Hirschian Symbology would get next to nothing out of performing most of the mitzvos. Especially the two categories of mitzvos RSRH calls osos and edios , which are symbols established by Hashem yisbarakh or that reflect events of history (respectively), rather than innate symbols self-evident to all people. It would mean that the vast majority of observant Jews (and Noachides) through the ages left the world with souls little changed by all that observance, because they didn’t have the symbology key.”

I have to differ strongly with you on this. Who says one is supposed “to get” something “out of performing (most of) the mitzvos” more than the satisfaction of having done the will of the Creator? RSRH emphasizes time and again that we are supposed to do the mitzvos, because HaShem commanded us to perform them. This should be enough, namely, the feeling that one has done the will of his creator. Understanding may be an added bonus, but it is no means required.

I put on my tefillen this morning with bracha knowing that this is what I am commanded to do. Is more needed? Not for me.

To give a real world example. If a parent asks a child to do something for him or her, shouldn’t the child be satisfied simply because s/he did what the parent asked even if s/he does not understand the reason why the parent wants this thing done?

Dr. Yitzchok Levine

In Ezra 4:14, the servants of King Igarta (Artaxerxes) of Persia explain that they must remain loyal to the king because כָּל-קֳבֵל דִּי-מְלַח הֵיכְלָא מְלַחְנָא “anyone who has taken the salt of the palace” should not look upon the dishonor of the king. In the ancient world, extracting edible salt was so difficult, kings often had the greatest supply. It also explains why our ancestors ate melach sedomis despite the risks — healthier salts were too pricey!

In Chazal’s day, Rome, who are considered Edom and the descendants of Eisav (whether genetic or cultural), also paid their soldiers in salt. In fact, this is the origin of the word salary, from “sal” (salt).

So it is possible that Chazal were saying Eisav was asking about maaser kesafim, but in order to highlight Eisav’s warring nature, they had him discussing his income in salt, not silver. In the other example, they used something closer to home, something someone in an agrarian society would grow, but not for food — straw.

This thought only works according to those who say that maser kesafim is minhag or a minhag chassidus (ie just a hanhagah, not a binding minhag). Otherwise, the medrash wouldn’t fit with those who say the avos kept the entire Torah. Eisav’s question is being held up as an example of false piety. This wouldn’t work if maaser kesafim were deOraisa or deRabbanan, and thus something Yitzchaq, or even the author of the medrash and his original audience, would do.

IOW, nowadays someone does need to tithe straw and salt, or at least the profit he made on them. So either maaser kesafim is newer than the medrash or the medrash means something very different from its usual understanding. Which I think argues against the acharonim who say maaser kesafim is halakhah. It’s not worth dwelling on too long, as an argument against the seriousness of maaser kesafim might hinder one’s giving….

Thank you.

The whole point of the post is to really get away from fear vs awe. To think like the Torah intends, and to really relate to HQBH with yir’ah, we have to learn to think in its own terms. Yir’ah as a primary concept, not as a set of emotions.

The next post in the series is already in the works. So whatever points I failed to make this time, I still have a chance to reinforce later. But until I get out what yir’ah is, as opposed to what some of its alternatives are, I am stuck talking around my point.

The end of “point 2” is something I’d love to read/learn more about. Yir’ah being a “stretch of emotional space” is pretty much untapped, in my opinion.

I recently heard (in an mp3 shiur from Rabbi Shmuel Silber from Baltimore)that using the word “fear” as a translation for yir’ah poses a big problem. Fear implies something that we want to separate or withdraw from. The example he gave was fire. If your hand gets close to a flame you are afraid that you’ll get burned. When we are in a relationship with Hashem (or anyone we love) the last thing we want to do is be in a state of “fear”, since we don’t want any type of separation.
That’s why the word “awe” is better, even though I think it’s an antiquated word.

I don’t know how to fit that commandment with the notion that we mourn the day the Septuagint was completed and three days of darkness descended on the world. (This was on 8 Teves, and the commemoration was folded into the 10 beTeves fast.) (Tur OC 580: כתב בה”×’: אלו הימים שמתענין בהם מן התורה. והמתענה בהם לא יאכל בהן, ולא ישתה עד הערב…. בח’ בטבת ×”×™×” מעשה דתלמי המלך)

Also, the stone on which those 70 translations were written were then covered in lime and turned into a monument in the middle of the Jordan and another as an altar atop Har Eival (Devarim 27:2-4) after the words are scraped off (c.f. Rashi, Yehoshua 8:32). It’s not like the translations were made to be read.

Maybe (just thinking aloud in response to your question) the message is that those of us who do think in other languages should acknowledge the need to translate as a first step. “Crossing over into the holy land”, as it were. And then you should get past that level and not need them anymore. But when Ptolmey demands the LXX as an alternative to striving to understand the original, darkness descends.

But all in all, a good question for which my first attempts to answer are insufficient.

I fail to see it. Moderation is defined as not going to extremes, of which Franklyn includes extreme responses to those who wronged you. Patience is about how we relate to other people. There is overlap, but only in that one mentions not indulging in revenge, and the other mentions tolerating what others do so that you don’t have cause for revenge. But neither actually focuses on avoiding revenge as the core of the virtue/middah.

thank you

shloime

As you might have noticed from the age of some of the comments, this is an annual post. Every time I blog something I think is relevant, I add another chapter. Every year, I advertise the booklet’s availability. And every year, I try to hit up a commenter for free editing.

You’re giving texts authority in an of themselves. However, what lends authority to a text is the Jewish People’s acceptance of that text. See the introduction to the Yad, par. 35, where the Rambam explains that this is the source of the gemara’s authority: “הוֹאִיל וְכָל אוֹתָן הַדְּבָרִים שֶׁבַּתַּלְמוּד הִסְכִּימוּ עֲלֵיהֶם כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל…”

R’ Saadia Gaon’s siddur is therefore a no starter. No community accepted it. Including the fact that my own ancestral community did not. (Given that none of us today live in communities with consistent pesqim and minhagim, we have to turn back to the last paternal ancestor who did.)

R’ Amram Gaon’s siddur is what we do actually follow. To the extent that we know what he wrote. But still, even if we found the original manuscript and determined which of our nusachos are originl on each point of contension, it wouldn’t make a difference, because we never accepted those parts.

I would like to flip the question a bit. Perhaps we are doing the assur of davening all these nusachot after an established nusach was in place for many years such siddur of saadia goan or rav amram goan.

It wasn’t so much a question as a complaint / suggestion about programming.

But I don’t think your summary is correct. Kelm produced R’ EE Dessler’s Qunterus haChesed pretty late in, perhaps after, the life of the movement. The whole thing about focusing on middos was about focusing on how to be a giver; giving was the standard by which “good middos” is measured.

How Novardok figures into that is beyond me. But again, I don’t see how R/D Levin could have been ignoring it. We are talking aboutthe author of Novarodok: A Movement That Lived in Struggle and Its Unique Approach to the Problem of Man.

At the end of everything, though, the comment did end up getting reflected in programming.

It’s been 8 years since I first wrote that. Rather than trying to recreate my thoughts of the time, see Rav Aharon Lichtenstein shlit”a’s article on the topic.

The source is a gemara asking why the king would only consult the urim vetumim and not the rabbis, and the gemara answers that the question was the potential success of the war — which the king must decide before asking Sanhedrin’s permission.

Start with Rambam Hilkhos Melakhim 5:2 — see if you can find anyone who provides his source. The Kesef Mishnah says it’s by omission… Since the gemara in Sanhedrin 20 says that the Sanhedrin must be asked when waging a specifically voluntary war, wars that are necessary for defense (and other types of milkhemes mitzvah) are decided by the king and his generals withough the rabbinate.

where is the source of this?
Thank You

Very cool and I think it’s a great way to apply this system.

Gemilus chassadim could run to tzedaqah goals, patience goals, shalom bayis goals, parenting goals…

In the last paragraph I note two things I think this tool will aid. To rephrase:
1- Allowing the person to connect a mundain or routine activity to their current spiritual mission statement.
2- Transforming cheshbon hanefesh by giving it a more explicit connection to the future, rather than keeping it a review of the past.

In terms of the 2nd point, what I think makes this interesting is that it opens the door to cheshbon hanefesh broken out by goal, rather than by middah. Or perhaps some combination of the two. I haven’t actually had a full year of Spiritual Hoshin Planning — I just started the basics only 2 weeks ago (23 Tammuz, my birthday). I assume this post and the whole idea will evolve as I am more informed by experience.

The Tanya makes it a precondition.

The Nefesh haChaim (4:7) has a different mashal, and I think the difference between them is all the difference between Chassidus and Yeshivish:
כשרז”ל עוד (שבת ל”א) משל לאדם שאמר לשלוחו העלה לי כור של חטים לעליה כו’ א”ל עירבת לי בהן קב חומטין א”ל לא. א”ל מוטב שלא העלית. וקאי על אמצע העסק בתבואות חכמת התורה שראוי ×’”×› לערב בתוכו יראתו ית’. כדי שתתקיים תלמודו בידו. ולכן סמך אצלו הברייתא תני דבי ר”×™ מערב אדם קב חומטין בכור של תבואה ואינו חושש.

This is line with his earlier mashal of yir’as Shamayim as the storehouse / silo, and Torah as the grain stored (4:5):
ולפי ערך גודל אוצר היראה אשר הכין לו האדם. כן ×¢”×– הערך יוכל ליכנס ולהשתמר ולהתקיים בתוכו תבואות התורה כפי אשר יחזיק אוצרו. ×›×™ האב המחלק תבואה לבניו. הוא מחלק ונותן לכל א’ מדת התבוא’ כפי אשר יחזיק אוצרו של הבן אשר הכין ×¢”×– מקודם. שאף אם ירצה האב וידו פתוחה ליתן לו הרבה. אמנם כיון שהבן אינו יכול לקבל יותר מחמת שאין אוצרו גדול ×›”×› שיוכל להחזיק יותר. גם האב א”א לו ליתן לו עתה יותר. ואם לא הכין לו הבן אף אוצר קטן. גם האב לא יתן לו כלל. כיון שאין לו מקום משומר שתתקיים אצלו. כן הוא ית”ש ידו פתוחה כביכול להשפיע תמיד לכל איש מעם סגולתו רב חכמה ובינה יתירה. ושתתקיים אצלם ויקשרם על לוח לבם.

So, to R’ Chaim Volozhiner, yir’as Shamayim is described for its utility in internalizing Torah. The Tanya makes learning a means to gain yir’as Shamayim. (I have a theory, though, that Nefesh haChaim vol 4 is not comprehensible without the prior three chalaqim, which have an emphasis on tiqun ha’olam in the Ari’s sense through tiqun of the self. In which case, we have to explain why the shiurim that R’ Yitzchaq put in shaar 4 has such a limud-centric orientation. I don’t have an answer I am entirely happy with, and in any case, this comment is long enough.)

R; Chaim stands in contrast to the Gra, at least in Even Sheleimah 1:11, who says that middos are the garden and Torah is the water that nourishes them — and especially yir’ah:
עניו התורה לנפש דוגמת המטר לארץ שמצמיח מה שנזרע בה סם חיים או סם מות. כן בתורה מצמיח מה שבלבו אם לבו טוב תגדיל יראתו. ואם בלבו שורש פורה ראש ולענה יגדיל השנאה בלבו. כמ״ש “צדיקים ילכו בם ופושעים יבשלו בם” וכמ״ש “למיימינים בה סמא דחיי . ולמשמאילים בה סמא דמותא” . ×¢×´×› צריך לפנות לבו בכל יום קודם הלימוד ואחריו מעיפוש הדיעות והמדות ביראת חטא ומע״ט

“Mind you, a solar eclipse during a full moon would be miraculous.” Only if you know astronomy, not for the masses.

“The British have King Arthur, who allegedly united them. Is this to be taken as proof he was real?”

His existence is still debated, but did he ever do a supernatural event in front of a nation?

He purpoortedly fought giant cat-monsters, destructive divine boars, dragons, dogheads, giants and witches but, not in front of an entire people, and the nation as a whole didn’t see it.

I’m not getting into the mechanics of why, but the Torah’s argument of שְׁאַל נָא is that the replications of the sinai and egypt traditions were not produced elsewhere.

Only if the 5 people existed. But then you’re already buying into the myth… That’s why it’s the earliest generation of believers, not number of people allegedly in the story.

Sorry, Proud, you’re wrong. It’s not a rare claim at all. Xianity has an alleged eclipse (and according to Matt, and earthquake) at the time he was nailed up. Mind you, a solar eclipse during a full moon would be miraculous. (They only happen at the molad.) And this is something they say was experienced across the entire Roman Empire and beyond.

The British have King Arthur, who allegedly united them. Is this to be taken as proof he was real?

I already mentioned that the “Kuzari Proof” doesn’t address what most Reform clergy teach. It also doesn’t address possibilities like Yoshiahu blaming Menashe’s near-obliteration of Yahadus for why people didn’t hear of what he read in that book he found. Or Ezra blaming galus Bavel. Picture what would have happened have all of Israel been through 70 years of Soviet-like religious oppression. Lots of opportunity to say that one was restoring what everyone once knew, before the troubles. Well, we were in that situation on more than one occasion.

Which is why the Torah speaks of us performing osos. The signs of the truth of our faith are what we see — or perhaps I should say what we hear “na’aseh venishma” — when we perform of its commandments. The Kuzari itself explains the weakness of formal proofs.

“Similarly, if 5 alleged survivors (as per the story) grew into an entire civilization, the same argument (“if this is true why had I never heard of it before?”) holds.”

Five people could’ve told their kids whatever they wanted,

The criteria is stated:

( כִּי שְׁאַל נָא לְיָמִים רִאשֹׁנִים אֲשֶׁר הָיוּ לְפָנֶיךָ לְמִן הַיּוֹם אֲשֶׁר בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם עַל הָאָרֶץ וּלְמִקְצֵה הַשָּׁמַיִם וְעַד קְצֵה הַשָּׁמָיִם הֲנִהְיָה כַּדָּבָר הַגָּדוֹל הַזֶּה אוֹ הֲנִשְׁמַע כָּמֹהוּ:
(לג) הֲשָׁמַע עָם קוֹל אֱלֹהִים מְדַבֵּר מִתּוֹךְ הָאֵשׁ כַּאֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתָּ אַתָּה וַיֶּחִי:
(לד) אוֹ הֲנִסָּה אֱלֹהִים לָבוֹא לָקַחַת לוֹ גוֹי מִקֶּרֶב גּוֹי בְּמַסֹּת בְּאֹתֹת וּבְמוֹפְתִים וּבְמִלְחָמָה וּבְיָד חֲזָקָה וּבִזְרוֹעַ נְטוּיָה וּבְמוֹרָאִים גְּדֹלִים כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה לָכֶם יְדֹוָד אֱלֹהֵיכֶם בְּמִצְרַיִם לְעֵינֶיךָ:
(לה) אַתָּה הָרְאֵתָ לָדַעַת כִּי יְדֹוָד הוּא הָאֱלֹהִים אֵין עוֹד מִלְּבַדּוֹ:

Out of your entire forest of mythology, you won’t find a nation believing the above,

I’m not sure your point. The “Kuzari Proof” doesn’t depend on the miraculous event being a revelation in particular. Just that it happened to the overwhelming majority of the ancestors of a community who consist of some large population. Similarly, if 5 alleged survivors (as per the story) grew into an entire civilization, the same argument (“if this is true why had I never heard of it before?”) holds. Think about it, the argument depends on the population of the oldest known generation of believers, not the number of attendees within the myth.

I also gave a mechanism — bed time story becomes legend becomes half-believed myth becomes accepted history over the course of centuries — by which there is no generation that would be startled by the new tale and reject it. In fact, Reform claims this is exactly what happened.

You’re also missing the forest for the trees… There are many many such myths. By the time you draw lines to show why Matan Torah’s claim differs from those of every myth, you have a very arbitrary little niche that will convince no one. OTOH, if you can just accept that it’s the obvious truth of shemiras Shabbos (or pick any list of mitzvos) that convinces you. It’s like looking up near the sun at midday and concluding the sun is yellow. It’s not a proof you can articulate and prove to others, but internally, it’s a lot more convincing than complex chains of logic.

The Aztec myth concerns Huitzilopochtli, who was a god of war, sun and human sacrifice. He sometimes appeared in human form. According to the Aubin Codex, the Aztecs originally came from a place called Aztlan. They lived under the ruling of a powerful elite called the “Azteca Chicomoztoca”. Huitzilopochtli ordered them to abandon Aztlan to find a new home. Huitzilopochtli guided them through a long journey.

The story basically describes the public appearance of a superhero of some sort, not the public revelation of the Almighty Creator.

Also, the Aubin Codex is one book currently in the British Museum Library. It was written by an unknown author in the Aztec language in 1576. We don’t know how many Aztecs actually knew of this story or believed it.”

“To the best of my knowledge, the only reference to a mass revelation in the Aztec chronicles in in the “Cronica Mexicayotle” which was written a hndred years after the conquest, and was discovered two hundred years after. I couldn’t find any evidence that the Aztec acutally saw it, let alone accepted it as their auithentic histor. And the mircales of the New Testimate seem to have witnessed by other people. So if someone asks, “Why didn’t my father tell me about those miracles” The answer would be “becuase he didn’t see them. Ony other people’s fathers saw them.” That doesn’t hold true for the National Revelation at Sinai.”

Formal gate or Royal Arch. An aron wouldn’t have the fence across the bottom. I think you’re over-analyzing a printer’s decision. Maybe just because it’s pretty and frames the text well — it’s rectangular and leaves the middle empty. I was just suggesting a meditation, not a cause.

I’m thinking of a sequence like this:
1. Gut reactions to event
2. Reflections as what personal corrections should follow
3. React to reflections by doing something

This post intended to make a point that I don’t want buried, that understanding the world scientifically ought to bolster our faith, not challenge it. Yes, there is overlap with the idea of understanding disease medically and yet still treating it as an Act of G-d. But this post intended to be more positive than that.

What he can determine in light of how he reacts to the event. Yes.

Many of us are not capable of this, and we need mentors. And many of us don’t have such mentors, so rabbis who lead communities might help a pathetic shadow of the ideal process along by speaking about reactions and issues he sees as common among those who choose to look to him.

But I don’t think what I’m saying is novel. It’s the gemara that calls upon the person to explore his own deeds, not me.

So you’re saying that every Jew should react according to what he can determine about his own spiritual condition, but there is no way to generalize further?

I would say that’s the biggest of three mistakes people make.

The second is that people just pick whatever sticks out in the mind, instead of an actual pishpush bemaasav and thinking about where the real problems lie.

The third is to think that because I am obligated to harness my response to a tragic event constructively, to find what it motivates me to improve and make that improvement, that implies that there is some causal connection. That the sin I am looking to do teshuvah is being blamed as the cause of the tragedy.

Wouldn’t the question on what Hashem is trying to elicit from us depend on who “us” is in ways I don’t know you personally well enough to answer? The gemara says “yefashpeish bemaasav”, it asks you to take an internal inventory of your actions, or perhaps omissions (the last possibility suggested in the gemara is bitul Torah). A quick-and-easy answer is inherently wrong.

Micha, what would you suggest?

A similar error is to think that knowing that it’s normal for 102 year old men to die obviates the need to explore why R’ Elyashiv happened to die just now and what is it Hashem is trying to elicit from us with it.

I’m wondering if Dr. Birnbaum made distinctions between spectator sports and everyday formal or informal sports, or between spectators and participants.

Also, a common thread between competitive sport (however he saw it) and gambling might be betting!

The person you would have to ask is no longer with us. I was presenting the spirit of the ideals, and less concerned with DNB’s application. Personally, I have seen how much my kids have grown in their interpersonal skills from team sports, from caring about their teammates to picking up an opposing player who was knocked to the floor in the scuffle.

But Dr Birnbaum did give us hints about his intent, since he makes a single clause out of “competitive sport or gambling” and avoiding these are apparently an implementation of “refrain[ing] from any excesses or immodesty”. It is all one bullet item in his list.

Did he dislike the competitive spirit? Or perhaps thought it forces people into the spotlight (“immodesty”)? What do you think?

I don’t want to play down what works for you, but maybe they should be out of sync. Yir’as Hashem, being about Transcendence, would therefore reside more in the brain, whereas ahavas Hashem and Immanence is more felt than thought.

I touched on this in my post on Emunah Peshutah vs Machashavah. (That post is 7-½ years old already? Really? I’ve been blogging that long? Wow time flies…)

Or not. I don’t think this is the kind of thing that has One True Answer.

Whether or not supporting the Alliance was a good idea…

RKWW was mosir nefesh for the Cantonists, literally risking his life to bring them Torah clandestinely. That’s what he did begufo, and what his children saw. His work in Chovevei Tzion brought him in constant contact with gedolei Torah. The fact that he donated money to secular Zionists was not the father his children primarily saw. Once you start playing guesswork, maybe it’s indicative of never having found the right work/home balance. Or maybe, as R’ Yisrael himself learned, it was simply a time of massive exodus and kids were leaving regardless of who their parents were.

Thanks. Inserted “Kalisher, R’ Shmuel”, as per what I thought I typed.

that’s not one person

Perhaps I should have just toned it down. My intent was that they didn’t have a day that centered around be’iyun, with one seder where you make time for beqi’us, as is the norm now. Rather, most of the day must have been beqi’us, and I don’t know if be’iyun time was even daily. I mean…. look at the ground they covered in just two years; it boggles the mind.

That was the only point in your original comment that rubbed me the wrong way.

I agree that a person’s children not following Torah and Mitzvos is not a complete or consistently reliable indication, but the term I used was “pattern”. Further, my goal was that these patterns should be addressed before using him as a role model, as I stated explicitly. Do you have any further information or explanations in that light? That is what I was hoping to elicit.

Let me ask you, Reb Reuven Dov Dessler was a wealthy balebos, who also happened to be a major TC and Baal Mussar. His son was raised to become a TC and Baal Mussar as well, in a warm family environment. RKWW was richer and RRDD had better children. What is your objection to using him as the ideal?

Finally, I’m certain that you have standards as well; would you consider someone who personally didn’t keep Shabbos as “ideal”? You’re quibbling with standards that someone who failed to live up to ‘lman asher ytzave banov vbnei baysoh achrov’, someone who financially supported schools that ‘shmad up’ thousands of Jews in the 1800’s, someone who supported a secular Zionist’s agenda, etc. is not “ideal”. Color me unimpressed with your objection.

Micha pointed out excellent accomplishments that one person, with a full time job, was able to make happen. For me that’s chizuk.

I am very curious what Reb Kalman Wolf’s relationship was like with his own children. For me that’s the real deal breaker.

Further, the government thought that R’ Yisroel Salanter might be amenable in assisting their plans to reform Yahadus in Russia (a possible reason why he spent a large part of his life out of Russia) obviously they were wrong but such a mistake was possible, point one. Rav Yaaqov Maze”h is another Rav that can be thought of in this light, IIRC more correctly in his case, point two. There is a further pattern here.

Before supporting someone as the ideal “Balebos” I would want to see these points addressed.

Until then I nominate Dr. Grunfeld, a practicing lawyer who a few years after he moved to England became Dayan Grunfeld a Dayan on the London Beis Din, better known as translator of Horeb. Or Reb Reuven Dov Dessler, a talmid of the Alter of Kelm, who became a wealthy timber merchant. Oh, he also temporarily ran the Kelm Yeshiva after the Alter was niftar, and his children *were* Shomer Shabbos, like R’ Eliyahu Eliezer Dessler, the Michtav M’Eliyahu.

A link that mentions the Alliance tangentially: https://www.jewishmag.com/127mag/cotopaxi/cotopaxi.htm – Very sad and shows the kesher of a Jew to EY.

A link about the educational theory of Allaince schools: https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/store/philosophy-history-of-ideas/product/alliance-isralite-universelle-une-mission-de-lalliance-au-ymen/

A link about Rav Mazeh: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%99%D7%A2%D7%A7%D7%91_%D7%9E%D7%96%D7%90%22%D7%94#.D7.AA.D7.95.D7.9C.D7.93.D7.95.D7.AA_.D7.97.D7.99.D7.99.D7.95

I would question the 3rd inference you draw here. Rav Chaim hardly invented the concept of learning b’iyun! I fully and wholeheartedly agree with you that the emphasis on beqiyut is sorely lacking in (Ashkenazi) Yeshivot today, but it seems highly doubtful to posit that there was no learning b’iyun in Volozhin!!!

Thanks for your support, Abba!

I think your point was that bochurim could learn anywhere in Shas their hearts desired. It seems to have been a much less structured environment.

You shed light on something I remember from MUtN. He dedicates a whole chapter to the Netziv’s lobbying that bochurim learn bechavrusoh. (I think the chapter is called “Two is Better than One”.) In light of your description of the studying style (and R’ Micha’s response) I understand why the Netziv stressed the importance of study partners.

Having learned both ways, I can’t see how independent study can be considered an advantage over a chavrusah. It’s too easy to fool oneself with understandings that address every word of the text, but are not complete. Or to misread something and not notice. Etc…

“After arranging accommodation, sometimes even before, the student went to the study hall and began to study. There was no need to fit the student into a shiur, since there was only one shiur for all the students. He did not even need to look for a study partner, since most study was carried out individually.”

This is a far cry from the system we have today.

You asked, “Do you know which version of the Hebrew was translated:” Actually neither!
The following is from the Acknowledgements page:

“When I first approached the Littman Library I proposed a translation of my book Hayeshivah halita’it behithavutah (The Formation of the Lithuanian Yeshiva), which had appeared in two editions in Israel, in 1995 and in 2005. As the work of translation proceeded I was the beneficiary of queries and comments from exceptional translators and editors. This led me to make innumerable corrections. I also added many sources and tried to sharpen my argument. Thus this is not a simple translation but a revised and expanded edition of the book.”

So you see, what I have is the most up to date version.

Do you know which version of the Hebrew was translated: the 2nd version has this chapter amended to reflect the declassified documents in which the government claims they decided to shut Volozhin down over the infighting causing anarchy. It’s a very sad version of the story — bayis sheini to Volozhin without any real progress.

Anyway, I didn’t read the book. Someone sent me just a few pages after I mentioned R’ Rakeffet’s version of the history. His shiurim on Jewish History are what you would expect from a YU rosh yeshiva with a PhD in the subject. Not as heavy as a class taken for a grade, but the intellectual integrity means you don’t get the whitewashed version.

Rabinowitz writes in part

“Many articles and books devoted to identifying women scholars have relied on a single source for their diverse material. That source is asection in Mekor Barukh (henceforth MB) by Rabbi Barukh Halevi Epstein, author of the well-known Torah Temima. R. Epstein’s rendition of the material is unfortunately not always faithful to the primary sources.4”

Footnote 4 says in part

“A cursory check would have revealed that there are troubling allegations concerning even such objective works as his Torah Temima. Many researchers have noted questionable quotes and unreliable sources.”

“Besides inaccuracies in his own work, R. Epstein commonly explained apparent inconsistencies in the siddur by claiming they were the result of earlier printing errors. Other scholars dispute this.”

In light of this and other criticisms of the accuracy of R. Epstein’s I personally doubt the accuracy of quote given above from MUtN about the secular knowledge of the students who studied in Voloshin.

I do not see the basis for the assertion “Tanakh: chumash and nevi’im rishonim according to Rashi and [Mendelsohn’s] Biur” The only mention I could find using the index of Stampfer’s book in English to Mendelssohn’s Biur is on page 43 where it says

“For example, he [R. Hayim] had given and approbation to R. Shelomoh Dubno for his commentary on the Torah. The latter had collaborated with Moses Mendelssohn, the great German leader of the Haskalah, in the writing of the Biur (the commentary on the Torah published with Mendelssohn’s German translation) though by the time R. Hayim was in contact with him, he had distanced himself from Mendelssohn.”

First of all, I do not think that the letter you refer to from RSRH was written “to his community to aid the emissary sent from the Yeshiva to raise funds in Frankfurt”

On page 198 of the bio of RSRH it says that Rabbiner Hirsch wrote a letter asking for support of the Kovna Kollel(Kollel Perushim of Kovna). (See footnote 20 on page 381 which refers to Mordechai Breuer’s book The TIDE of Samson Raphael Hirsch.

Stampfer himself refers to this letter in his book on pages 343-344. There he gives the text of the letter followed by a comment from Breuer, namely,

This institution trains young men destined to be outstanding scholars, while simultaneously providing them with education in the national language and other branches of knowledge important for their general enlightenment. This institution may be truly regarded as the salvation of the religion … this is the first, and so far the only, instance in which outstanding teachers, distinguished for their Torah and fear of Heaven, have decreed that study of the national language and general scientific enlightenment are permitted and indeed desirable. This confirms the principle upon which our community is founded … and behold, I declare it an illustrious exemplar beyond all doubt, and it is worthy of imitation.

In publishing the letter, Mordechai Breuer added:
It is not our responsibility to check how it happened that the Kovno kolel, which followed the classic Lithuanian yeshiva style of study, was described to R. Samson Hirsch and his disciples as an institution that also provided secular education. It is possible that there was some misunderstanding here, and that perhaps R. Hirsch was misled by his enthusiasm to add extra details to ambiguous hints given by R. Avraham Shenker.

Also, WADR to R. Baruch Epstein, there are many who claim that one cannot always rely on what he wrote in Mikor Baruch. Stampfer writes this and I have heard this from others, so I would take the quote from MUtN with a very big grain of salt.

In any event, there is no mention in either the bio of RSRH or Stampfer’s book about a letter that RSRH wrote asking for support for the Volozhiner Yeshiva. (It is interesting to note that Stampfer documents a rivalry between Volozhin and the Kovna Kollel.)

Regarding the curriculum you gave, my impression from reading about half of Stampfer’s book is that there was no curriculum per se in Volozhin. Indeed, the emphasis was on learning for the sake of learning, and the bochrim could learn whatever they wanted. This is way students could be admitted at any time. While there was a shiur on a given daf each day, bochrim did not have to attend.

BTW, these shiurim went through the entire Shas, starting with Brachos. In this way the yeshiva completed all of Shas in about 7 years according to Stampfer. So one might say that the Volozhin Yeshiva actually started the Daf Yomi! This is certainly not what is done in yeshivas today.

One of the unique things about the yeshiva is that there were no vacations and learning went on for 24 hours every day! Again, not the practice in yeshivas today. (Some boys did go home for the Yomim Tovim, though.)

Pages 160 to 165 deal with “The Yeshiva’s Stand on Secular Knowledge.” Stampfer concludes this section with the following:

“In other words, R. Berlin supported the integration of general studies, presumably at the elementary school level, with the study of Torah. At the same time, he did not see general studies as an end in themselves and claimed that it was impossible ‘to be a great Torah scholar if one is also dealing with other topics’. This was the root of his opposition to involvement in secular studies at the yeshiva. In his opinion, ‘all the great Torah scholars who are also wise in secular matters received their secular education either before they devoted themselves entirely to the study of Torah or acquired their knowledge after becoming Torah scholars. However, to do this simultaneously precludes reaching the desired goal of study. This implies that it is possible to study secular studies in elementary school and nonetheless to become a great Torah scholar later in life. This approach to Haskalah and general studies was the norm and far from exceptional in Lithuanian rabbinical circles in his time.”

Below is what Stampfer writes on pages 206 – 207 about the introduction of secular studies in the yeshiva as a result of pressure from the Russian government

“The pressure exerted on the yeshiva to introduce secular studies eventually bore fruit. In 1890, apparently fearing that the authorities would in fact close down the yeshiva, R. Berlin decided to set up a framework for secular studies under the yeshiva’s aegis, and began to take steps to carry out his decision. This was a great innovation, of course, even though such study was not compulsory, did not take up much time, and did not take place in the yeshiva itself-though where exactly these studies took place is not clear. However, for the first time secular studies were given an official place in the study programme at the yeshiva. At first there were twenty-five participants and the number rose to fifty-which was about 20 per cent of the student body. Ultimately, fifty students were registered for the lessons, thirty-five in the beginners’ class and fifteen in the advanced class. According to the evidence of the son of one of these students, students ‘whose piety was more outstanding than their learning’ were chosen; they were regarded as ‘volunteers’ who would save the yeshiva by their participation. Even so, it seems likely that at least a few of the participants actually wanted to learn Russian, even if they did not admit it. R. Berlin made sure that the teacher was not Jewish, probably fearing that a Jewish teacher who supported the Haskalah might have a bad influence on the students, while anon-Jewish teacher would content himself with teaching Russian. This angered the local maskilim, of course. Secular studies were held initially once a week, in the evening, and lasted for about two hours. They were not intensive and the students did not always take them very seriously; attendance was irregular. It seems that, over time, the number of students attending rose. Their progress was not very impressive, as the authorities noticed, but it was progress. A demand was made that the number of students learning Russian should be raised to a hundred, but it was not implemented.

“R. Naftali Berlin did not want the yeshiva students to study secular subjects as part of their studies at the yeshiva, but was prepared to submit to the demand that a few dozen students should engage in such studies once a week, for an hour and a half, in order to prevent the yeshiva being closed.”

In light of this, I have to agree with the points made by S. and my son R. Dovid Levine, namely, that the Netziv was not forthright with the Russian government regarding secular subjects in Volozhin.

For the record, RSRH also did his best to resist the control that the German government attempted to exert on his school regarding the amount of time spent on secular subjects, because it detracted from the time that could be spent teaching Torah subjects.

PS. I find Stampfer’s book to be a wonderfully researched volume with copious footnotes an index and an extensive bibliography. It is a real piece of scholarly work and a far cry from the so-called “Orthodox history books” that are common fare today. The book is expensive, but, IMO, well worth the price. YL

“. Also, the notion that the curriculum was falsified to appease the government wouldn’t explain the inclusion of German or Ivrit, neither of which is required for the Czar’s goal of Russification of the empire’s ethnic minorities.”

I disagree. Both German and “Ivrit” were perceived by the Russian government as a means toward Russifying the Jews. Read up on the Uvarov-Lilienthal period. They knew that you can’t get from point A to point Z without incremental steps. They correctly realized that German was easier and more natural for Yiddish speaking Jews than Russian, and that education and assimilation would begin with German, not Russian. Why do you think the Czar kept paying for German translations of the Talmud (Pinner), the Vilna edition of the Biur and even the Mishneh Torah?

All that said, I wholeheartedly agree that there seems to have been a very different intellectual environment in Volozhin (or, indeed, among much of the Lithuanian youth) then there is today among bochurim. How many bochurim today, for example, crave to know algebra or how to write beautifully in Hebrew? There are a variety of reasons, including economic ones, why much of this is different today, and of course there still are bochurim who want to know secular subjects and become autodidacts, etc. But certainly it seems that there were differences. Still, at the end of it all, it is hard to know why this curriculum should be taken at face value, especially where it is hardly matched by numerous first person accounts of what went on in Volozhin.

“S.” suggested similarly (5/25 2:40pm). As noted in the post, though, RSRH and the Torah Temimah both believed Volzhin’s culture supported secular knowledge. It’s not just the report to the government or RSRH’s endorsement — the two are consistent with each other, and consistent with the Torah Temimah. Your contrary testimony is from someone who left in a huff — it’s Bialik’s perceptions I would question. Also, the notion that the curriculum was falsified to appease the government wouldn’t explain the inclusion of German or Ivrit, neither of which is required for the Czar’s goal of Russification of the empire’s ethnic minorities.

In general, there were a number of yeshivos where the culture was that bachurim picked up secular books and learned things other than Torah. In Slabodka, where there were no secular studies, the culture was such that the students expected to pick up Freud (of much interest in a Mussar yeshiva), Marx, and the other major thinkers of the era, on their own time. See R’ AE Kaplan’s reminiscences in BeIqvos haYir’ah. (Down the street and slightly later in time, in R’ Baruch Ber’s Kamenetz, I’m sure they were far less open. Also I doubt R’ Elchanan Wasserman was too keen on talmidim opening secular books either.) I mention this to show that the whole Lithuanian Yeshiva experience didn’t expect as much cloistering as today’s yeshivos; the culture differs. Could you picture many of today’s yeshivish Rashei Yeshiva reading the local Federation paper? The Netziv kept up with the Haskalishe newspapers, reading them Friday night no less. There is no basis for extrapolating from today’s yeshivos or even those of Lithuania between the wars back to Volozhin. (Including extrapolation on willingness to bend the truth for a good cause.)

I also think that in the attention paid in this comment chain to secular part of the curriculum, not enough attention is being paid to the difference in derekh halimmud and Torah curriculum between Volozhin and yeshivos today.

I don’t believe the letter from RSRH counts for much evidence either. Truth has stretched much further in the name of collecting tzedokoh for yeshivos.

I think I remember from The Making of a Gadol that Bialik heard he would find torah and the chochmos in Volozhin, but he was sorely disappointed when all he found was torah, torah, and more torah. When the inspectors came, the hanhalah appointed some of the brightest bochurim to learn Russian literature. (I think one was Rav Zelig Reuven Bengis, who recited the works of a famous Russian author forward and backward! The inspector realized Bengis was not the typical yeshivah talmid.) I don’t have the book with me, so I can’t avow for preciseness. Anyway, from these stories I gather most bochurim were NOT steeped in secular wisdom.

I am not lobbying to go back to the “good old days” of ignorance. However, I am not sure bochurim in mainstream yeshivos ever studied secular knowledge more seriously than they do now.

Yiddish was not yet viewed as a language. It was a zhargon, and no more cultivated, loved or taught than Black American English (although even that is probably changing, as today we tend to take a descriptivist approach to language, and rightly so).

That’s only partially true. Talmud Leshon Ivri was also trying to teach the use of Hebrew for modern composition which, before Ben Yehuda, was largely imagined as made up of melitza.

And, of course, Ben Zev wrote it on shabbos. Wink.

https://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2008/12/put-away-your-ben-zeev-books-where-jl.html

Are you sure this quote is from Making of a Godol? I just checked my “improved edition” [also banned…], and I couldn’t find it anywhere; a quick Google search reveals two other blogs that cite it as coming from page 204 of My Uncle the Netziv. [in my copy, pages 202-204 are indeed talking Lilienthal’s visit, but these words are not found].

Interesting, page 253 (Excursus A, paragraph 25) does offer two sources that have R’ Itzeleh telling Lilienthal that he uses the Biur in teaching Chumash.

Point taken and thank you.

I would rephase it more in the positive: Stuff like this is important for people to whom Volozhin’s real footsteps walked a path that speaks to them.

There are too many blogs that focus on what’s wrong with the way others do things. I would like to keep things here about learning more and being inspired about the way we (whomever the “we” happens to be) do things. Even if the difference is more about tone than substance.

Corrected.

Hag Sa-me’-ach.

As for math, it may not have been formally taught, but they must have understood geometry based on the masechtas they learned.

I added credit; it’s a book, not an on-line source. I also added a quote from Making of a Gadol.