New answers tagged hashkafah-philosophy
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Sure, we follow what the Gemmorah taught us (Psochim 50b):
דְּאָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר רַב, לְעוֹלָם יַעֲסוֹק אָדָם בְּתוֹרָה וּבְמִצְוֹת אַף עַל פִּי שֶׁלּא לִשְׁמָהּ שֶׁמִּתּוֹךְ
שֶׁלּא לִשְׁמָהּ בָּא לִשְׁמָהּ
A person should always engage in Torah study and performance of mitzvot, even if he does so for his own sake, as through the ...
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The Creator wanted man to procreate and populate the world, as the verse says (Yeshaya 45:18) לא תהו בראה – לשבת יצרה, He did not create it [the world] for a waste, He formed it to be inhabited. [This verse refers to Hashem's desire that the world be inhabited by humans (no special reference to Yehudim)].
To this end, He created a powerful drive, which ...
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אם אין יראה, אין חכמה
If there is no fear, there is no wisdom.
(משנה אבות ג יז)
וְעַתָּה֙ יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל מָ֚ה יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ שֹׁאֵ֖ל מֵעִמָּ֑ךְ כִּ֣י אִם־לְ֠יִרְאָ֠ה אֶת־יְהֹוָ֨ה אֱלֹהֶ֜יךָ לָלֶ֤כֶת בְּכׇל־דְּרָכָיו֙ וּלְאַהֲבָ֣ה
אֹת֔וֹ וְלַֽעֲבֹד֙ אֶת־יְהֹוָ֣ה אֱלֹהֶ֔יךָ בְּכׇל־לְבָבְךָ֖ וּבְכׇל־נַפְשֶֽׁךָ׃
(דברים י:יב)
All that ...
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Does the prayer of Daniel in the Babylonian Captivity (9:4-19) apply in some way to the Holocaust?
I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed:
“Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 5 we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away ...
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THere's another way of looking at the Catastrophe:
Rashi on the Posuk (Gen 45):
וַיִּפֹּל עַל־צַוְּארֵי בִנְיָמִן־אָחִיו וַיֵּבְךְּ וּבִנְיָמִן בָּכָה עַל־צַוָּארָיו׃
With that he [Yossef] embraced his brother Benjamin around the neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.
brings the Midrash B"R:
"עַל שְׁנֵי מִקְדָּשׁוֹת שֶׁעֲתִידִין לִהְיוֹת ...
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Sorry for saying that:
G-d doesn't stop what He started. He didn't "stop" the Egyptian exile, where millions perished, neither He "stopped" the destruction of the two Temples and millions dead or expelled. And neither He "stopped" the Holocaust.
The failure to understand that those events did not start "against His will" or "while He was away" lead to this ...
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Based on the unanimously accepted Rambam's 13 principles, as long as a person truly believes that the Torah we possess is exactly what was given at Sinai by G-d, he's considered pious and not asked on the details.
A person is not asked/tested whether Avraham was a real man, if Exodus was real or if the facts of the Torah match our empirical reality.
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Many are the essays and books which have been written on the discrepancies between the scientific account of the mode in which our globe came into being, and the account given in this first chapter of the Bible. (John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible)
The Torah is not a textbook of science. It is a textbook of religion, of the Jewish religion. It has ...
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The Rambam believed that the Torah is not intended to be history or science, but ethical teachings:
Those passages in the Bible, which, in their literal sense, contain statements that can be refuted by proof, can and must be interpreted otherwise. [Rambam, Guide to the Perplexed, 2:25]
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The Torah, the Talmud and Chazal do not use the artificial label "Orthodox" or recognize subcategories of Judaism, it is just one religion. And you remain as Jewish as the rest of us even if you question and doubt. Yes, events described in the Torah are ofttimes inconsistent with laws of nature as we know it, or current scientific knowledge, and could only ...
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Reflecting long enough to consider what it means to be the Founder of our faith, which is also called the Way of G-d, you will have your answer.
The word Founder in English comes from the verb found which according to the New Oxford American Dictionary means:
To establish or originate something especially by providing an endowment.
This same dictionary ...
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Let me surprise you a bit (with a non-standard answer) because it bothered me a lot and I couldn't find a clear explanation. This is all based on R' Moshe Luria Z"l Ariz"l's tradition as brought in his books Bays Gnozay.
When the world was created by [some kind of heavenly] Torah, neither Adam or Noah or Abraham or Yaakov received anything written. That, ...
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From the TaNaKH and from the Talmud, we read about these ultimate "afterlife"-destinations, inclusive of a time-frame:
"And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,
some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting
abhorrence."
(Daniel 12:2)
Death is like sleep. Just as we wake-up from sleep, we also wake-up ...
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Today is Yom Hashoah here in Israel and here are a couple of important [yet unspoken and unpopular] lessons on this topic:
G-d and the Torah invented and popularized the idea that for the purpose of making the world better some [bad of course] nations must be exterminated in this way or another. The Egyptians, the 7 nations, the Amalekites? The world would ...
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'אנו עמלים ומקבלים שכר' - A mitzva is worth proportionately more according to the effort invested. Therefore, the Vilna Gaon preferred to learn the Torah himself rather than learn it through the Divine assistance (or Maggid, as it was known to the Beis Yosef. See writings of R' Moshe Kordevero about Ruach Hakodesh who explains in detail the exact definition ...
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Two sources worth looking at are Rashi's commentary to Bereshit 32:29, which says:
לא יעקב. לא יאמר עוד שהברכות באו לך בעקבה וברמיה כי אם בשררה ובגלוי פנים, וסופך שהקדוש ברוך הוא נגלה עליך בבית אל ומחליף את שמך, ושם הוא מברכך, ואני שם אהיה ואודה לך עליהן, וזהו שכתוב (הושע יב ה) וישר אל מלאך ויכל בכה ויתחנן לו, בכה המלאך ויתחנן לו, ומה נתחנן לו (שם) בית אל ...
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Here is a list of roughly 6 approaches in Jewish Thought to the question of scientific theories of origin (Big Bang Theory, Inflation, Geology, Evolution, etc...) and the Torah's depiction of creation. I am certain there are others I haven't encountered.
1) Rejection of scientific conclusions.
Theories change over time. Rather than worry about a ...
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I know of a number of approaches to evolution vs creation in Jewish thought. As far as I can tell, it seems that an insistence on the Torah giving literal history with it being roughly 5,769 years since ex nihilo, became more popular after the scientific challenges of the past two centuries, not less. As though we dug in our heels in the face of so many ...
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It seems like this could be comparable to the Braisa that mentions the methodology of Shimon HaAmsuni (can be found in Pesachim 22b, among other places):
כדתניא שמעון העמסוני ואמרי לה נחמיה העמסוני היה דורש כל אתים שבתורה
כיון שהגיע לאת ה׳ אלהיך תירא פירש אמרו לו תלמידיו רבי כל אתים שדרשת מה
תהא עליהן אמר להם כשם שקבלתי שכר על הדרישה כך אני מקבל שכר ...
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Here's an answer to Ari from Ar"i z"l:
The Kabbalistic approach distinguishes between referring to Hashem as slaves to referring as sons as many "Pesach-related" Psukim say like:
וְאָמַרְתָּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה כֹּה אָמַר ה' בְּנִי בְכֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
(... ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is My first-born son.)
While the aspect of slavery to Hashem remained ...
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There is no freeman but one who is occupied in Torah. (Avos 6.2) Everyone is slave to his impulses, Yetzer (desires), but Eved Hashem fulfills his innermost will. The Rambam in Hilchos Gerushin famously writes (regarding 'Hit him until he says "I want!"') that the true and inner desire of every Jew is to do the Torah's will.
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I can't point to specific sources; but while initiative is certainly important, the entire point of prayer in Judaism is recognizing that you Can't do it yourself. Of course anything one does "himself" is also only through the help of G-d, but it seems that praying for a solution that doesn't require one's strength or involvement would be the easier way to ...
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ראב"ן: כנגד הקריאות שעתידים לקרוא בבית הכנסת: קריאת הבעל קורא, קריאת העולה לתורה
והתרגום (שנקרא כיום רק בקהילות מסוימות אך בעבר נקרא בכל קהילות ישראל). יש המפרשים את דבריו כי מדובר דווקא בתקנה עבור מי שלא שמע את הקריאה בתורה בציבור.חזון איש: כדי שילמד ויבין האדם את תוכנה של פרשת השבוע הקרובה
מטה משה סי' תס"ד: זכר לנתינות התורה השונות – בסיני ובאוהל מועד ...
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The Talmud states:
Taanit 3a-3b
תנא בטל וברוחות לא חייבו חכמים להזכיר ואם בא להזכיר מזכיר מ"ט א"ר חנינא לפי שאין נעצרין וטל מנלן דלא מיעצר דכתיב ויאמר אליהו התשבי מתושבי גלעד אל אחאב חי ה' אלהי ישראל אשר עמדתי לפניו אם יהיה השנים האלה טל ומטר כי אם לפי דברי וכתיב לך הראה אל אחאב ואתנה מטר על פני האדמה ואילו טל לא קאמר ליה מאי טעמא משום דלא דלא מיעצר וכי ...
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One implication of the question is that if something is automatic, there should be no prayer regarding it. Another implication (possibly supported by the wording of the piyut by Kalir) is that Tefillas Tal is a request for dew.
Both implications are incorrect.
We say every day that Hashem is המחדש בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית (renews every day the operation ...
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I'll give you an example: It is very clearly seen here in Jerusalem's HMOs when the residents of all kinds bring their kids to vaccinate. First, come the secular, then Kipah Sruga, then the Litvakes, then the Chassidishers and the last (but not least) the Yerushalmi. And some never come.
And we can rate them clearly according to their level of Bitachon in ...
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Chaim, welcome to Mi Yodeya.
I am not overly familiar with the changing nuances of "yeshivish", so I can't say that this particular phrase is something that I have heard verbatim. But, in addressing the concept implied by your question, you may want to gain some clarity between two similar terms - bitachon and emunah.
There are numerous articles on this ...
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