http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110009804&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage
Perhaps with all of Al Gore's carbon emissions from his heated swimming pool, we finally won't need to heat swimming pools anymore. give credit where credit is due.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
A comment on Rosenblum
WFB said...
rosenblum claims: "CHAREIDI MISGIVINGS ABOUT MODERN DAY ISRAEL are an altogether different matter. Truth be told, the chareidi world has long since made its peace with Israel, in one way or another – and for a reason that highlights the differences between the chareidi critique and that of the progressives. Israel is today home to almost half the world’s Jews and over half the world’s Jewish children. For that simple reason alone, chareidi Jews worldwide are deeply concerned about Israel’s security however dismayed they may be about the internal direction of the country. Precisely because they do not doubt for a minute that the entire world depends on the existence of the Jewish people are they ardent defenders of Israel’s security. In this respect, I have found little difference between the 16th Ave. Telshe minyan in Boro Park and the average Modern Orthodox shul in Teaneck. The latter may have a few more members convinced that they have security expertise worth sharing with Israel’s prime ministers and generals and the former may worry a bit more about kiruv in the Holy Land, but, in general, the sense of involvement in Israel’s fate does not differ greatly between the two. Chareidi Jews can acknowledge that the creation of Israel was not without moral taint and caused the suffering and dislocation of tens of thousands of Arab residents of what would become the new state. But in that respect, Arab refugees were no different than the other 38 million people dislocated in various ethnic conflicts around the world in the 20th century. With the sole exception of the Palestinians none of those millions still enjoy refugee status today. No moral absolutism will cause chareidim to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel and thereby increase the danger to its Jewish residents just because Israel, like every other nation state in history, was born in war. If the Jewish people is to fulfill its world mission, it must first survive. And because Torah Jews believe in that world mission they urge Israel to follow the principle of “the one who comes to kill you, rise up and kill him [first],” towards those who remain committed to expelling all the Jews of Israel from their homes. And it does not matter, at this point, that those who come to kill us may have real grievances so long as they cannot reconcile themselves with Jewish existence in any part of Eretz Yisrael."
This is wishful thinking on his part, trying to transfer his personal beliefs onto charedi society in general. unfortunately however, this is not true. i dont remember if it was the yated or the hamodia which editorialized in favor of disengagement primarily because it meant those religious zionists would be getting what they deserved. (reason possibly not stated explicitly. furthermore it was only one of them, the other paper was against it)But what happened to their deep security concerns? point is a significant portion of the charedi public has serious problems dealing with Israel's existence because of some strange theological position of theirs, and pretending that the problem doesn't exist may not just make it go away.
rosenblum claims: "CHAREIDI MISGIVINGS ABOUT MODERN DAY ISRAEL are an altogether different matter. Truth be told, the chareidi world has long since made its peace with Israel, in one way or another – and for a reason that highlights the differences between the chareidi critique and that of the progressives. Israel is today home to almost half the world’s Jews and over half the world’s Jewish children. For that simple reason alone, chareidi Jews worldwide are deeply concerned about Israel’s security however dismayed they may be about the internal direction of the country. Precisely because they do not doubt for a minute that the entire world depends on the existence of the Jewish people are they ardent defenders of Israel’s security. In this respect, I have found little difference between the 16th Ave. Telshe minyan in Boro Park and the average Modern Orthodox shul in Teaneck. The latter may have a few more members convinced that they have security expertise worth sharing with Israel’s prime ministers and generals and the former may worry a bit more about kiruv in the Holy Land, but, in general, the sense of involvement in Israel’s fate does not differ greatly between the two. Chareidi Jews can acknowledge that the creation of Israel was not without moral taint and caused the suffering and dislocation of tens of thousands of Arab residents of what would become the new state. But in that respect, Arab refugees were no different than the other 38 million people dislocated in various ethnic conflicts around the world in the 20th century. With the sole exception of the Palestinians none of those millions still enjoy refugee status today. No moral absolutism will cause chareidim to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel and thereby increase the danger to its Jewish residents just because Israel, like every other nation state in history, was born in war. If the Jewish people is to fulfill its world mission, it must first survive. And because Torah Jews believe in that world mission they urge Israel to follow the principle of “the one who comes to kill you, rise up and kill him [first],” towards those who remain committed to expelling all the Jews of Israel from their homes. And it does not matter, at this point, that those who come to kill us may have real grievances so long as they cannot reconcile themselves with Jewish existence in any part of Eretz Yisrael."
This is wishful thinking on his part, trying to transfer his personal beliefs onto charedi society in general. unfortunately however, this is not true. i dont remember if it was the yated or the hamodia which editorialized in favor of disengagement primarily because it meant those religious zionists would be getting what they deserved. (reason possibly not stated explicitly. furthermore it was only one of them, the other paper was against it)But what happened to their deep security concerns? point is a significant portion of the charedi public has serious problems dealing with Israel's existence because of some strange theological position of theirs, and pretending that the problem doesn't exist may not just make it go away.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
chok u'mishpat: 2 recent links from gil
1. taamei hakorbanoth acc. to the rambam
2. TC on solly
i think the unmentioned idea in both is that if the jews keep the mishpatim, the goyim recognize the divine widom behind the chukim. (elaboration for another time, bl"n)
2. TC on solly
i think the unmentioned idea in both is that if the jews keep the mishpatim, the goyim recognize the divine widom behind the chukim. (elaboration for another time, bl"n)
I don't know why I haven't ever read this site before, it seems really good.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/bush_derangement_syndrome_chen.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/berger_libby_a_tale_of_two_cri.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/bush_derangement_syndrome_chen.html
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/03/berger_libby_a_tale_of_two_cri.html
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
New York TImes Is Biased!
A blast from the past "media and politics" angle, the New York Times distorts objective reality again:
"Part of [Gore's] scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.
"I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. "But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data." . . .
Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots. "
Some might see this as confirmation of their long held skepticism about the global warming consensus. But the enlightened among us will just say, "Well, but not all "debates" have multiple sides -- the scientific consensus is clear: global warming is occuring, and humans are contributing to it. That's a fact-based empirical claim, not a faith-based "belief". There is no credible debate among intellectually honest observers about this, only about how much warming is happening how fast, what the likely consequences are, what we can/cannot do to halt it, and precisely how much human activity is contributing to it. Put another way, there is no real policy debate, only a political debate. Damn corporate media bias." (just a conjecture, in no way based on real events.)
"Part of [Gore's] scientific audience is uneasy. In talks, articles and blog entries that have appeared since his film and accompanying book came out last year, these scientists argue that some of Mr. Gore's central points are exaggerated and erroneous. They are alarmed, some say, at what they call his alarmism.
"I don't want to pick on Al Gore," Don J. Easterbrook, an emeritus professor of geology at Western Washington University, told hundreds of experts at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America. "But there are a lot of inaccuracies in the statements we are seeing, and we have to temper that with real data." . . .
Criticisms of Mr. Gore have come not only from conservative groups and prominent skeptics of catastrophic warming, but also from rank-and-file scientists like Dr. Easterbook, who told his peers that he had no political ax to grind. A few see natural variation as more central to global warming than heat-trapping gases. Many appear to occupy a middle ground in the climate debate, seeing human activity as a serious threat but challenging what they call the extremism of both skeptics and zealots. "
Some might see this as confirmation of their long held skepticism about the global warming consensus. But the enlightened among us will just say, "Well, but not all "debates" have multiple sides -- the scientific consensus is clear: global warming is occuring, and humans are contributing to it. That's a fact-based empirical claim, not a faith-based "belief". There is no credible debate among intellectually honest observers about this, only about how much warming is happening how fast, what the likely consequences are, what we can/cannot do to halt it, and precisely how much human activity is contributing to it. Put another way, there is no real policy debate, only a political debate. Damn corporate media bias." (just a conjecture, in no way based on real events.)
in an article befitting its subject "Athwart History" (subscription only) is excruciatingly long:
Although he remains the most eminent conservative in the United States, his face and voice recognized by millions, William F. Buckley Jr. has all but retired from public life. At the apex of his influence, when Richard Nixon and, later, Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, Buckley received flattering notes on presidential letterhead and importuning phone calls from Cabinet members worried about their standing in the conservative movement. Since those heady times, Buckley has, piece by piece, dismantled the formidable apparatus through which he tirelessly promulgated conservative doctrine over the course of half a century. In 1998, he ended his frenetic schedule of public speeches (some 70 a year over the course of 40 years, he once estimated). In 1999, he taped the last segment of "Firing Line," the debate program begun in 1966 that invented TV punditry. And, in 2004, he relinquished his controlling stock ownership of National Review, the magazine he founded in 1955 and had continued to direct from behind the scenes even after yielding his place atop the masthead in 1988. Buckley made these serial "divestitures" contentedly, even cheerfully. It left more time for other pursuits—writing novels, weekend sailing (he sold his 36-foot sloop, Patito, but sometimes traverses the Long Island Sound with its new owner, Roger Kimball, who co-edits The New Criterion), and music (he still plays Bach on the piano in his study and invites friends to his rambling weekend home in Stamford, Connecticut, to hear professional recitals on the harpsichord in his music room). In truth, Buckley has never been a wholeheartedly political creature and doesn't quite approve of politicians—not even his favorites. Of his disciples Barry Goldwater and Reagan, Buckley emphasizes, "They came to me." He once told me he discusses politics only when someone's paying him to do it.Still, Buckley, now 81, likes to have his say and, for this reason, has held onto one outlet for regular political commentary: his syndicated column, "On the Right," which he has been writing since 1962. At its peak, the column ran in 300 dailies. Today, Buckley's most dedicated readers are the friends who receive e-mailed versions in advance, though even they, in some cases, may read him less avidly than before or wait to catch up with the selected columns reprinted in the back pages of National Review.Or so it was, until George W. Bush invaded Iraq. The war that has unhinged so many has curiously revitalized Buckley, not as the administration's most eloquent defender but as perhaps its most forceful in-house critic. Untethered to the Bush team—the only insider he knew was Donald Rumsfeld, whom Buckley suggested should consider resigning following the Abu Ghraib scandal—he is also detached from its outer ring of ideologues and flacks. He is, instead, a party of one, who thinks and writes with newfound freedom. While others, left and right, have staked out positions and then fortified them, week after week, Buckley has been thinking his way through events as they have unfolded, looking for new angles of approach, new ways of understanding, drawing on his matchless knowledge of modern conservatism and on his 50-year immersion in the American political scene. It is one of those late-period efflorescences that major figures sometimes enjoy—and, in Buckley's case, it is marked by an unexpected austerity. Like Wallace Stevens's snow man, he has developed a "mind of winter" and, as he scans the bleak vista of the Iraq disaster, "beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." And it has been instructive to observe.
Although he remains the most eminent conservative in the United States, his face and voice recognized by millions, William F. Buckley Jr. has all but retired from public life. At the apex of his influence, when Richard Nixon and, later, Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, Buckley received flattering notes on presidential letterhead and importuning phone calls from Cabinet members worried about their standing in the conservative movement. Since those heady times, Buckley has, piece by piece, dismantled the formidable apparatus through which he tirelessly promulgated conservative doctrine over the course of half a century. In 1998, he ended his frenetic schedule of public speeches (some 70 a year over the course of 40 years, he once estimated). In 1999, he taped the last segment of "Firing Line," the debate program begun in 1966 that invented TV punditry. And, in 2004, he relinquished his controlling stock ownership of National Review, the magazine he founded in 1955 and had continued to direct from behind the scenes even after yielding his place atop the masthead in 1988. Buckley made these serial "divestitures" contentedly, even cheerfully. It left more time for other pursuits—writing novels, weekend sailing (he sold his 36-foot sloop, Patito, but sometimes traverses the Long Island Sound with its new owner, Roger Kimball, who co-edits The New Criterion), and music (he still plays Bach on the piano in his study and invites friends to his rambling weekend home in Stamford, Connecticut, to hear professional recitals on the harpsichord in his music room). In truth, Buckley has never been a wholeheartedly political creature and doesn't quite approve of politicians—not even his favorites. Of his disciples Barry Goldwater and Reagan, Buckley emphasizes, "They came to me." He once told me he discusses politics only when someone's paying him to do it.Still, Buckley, now 81, likes to have his say and, for this reason, has held onto one outlet for regular political commentary: his syndicated column, "On the Right," which he has been writing since 1962. At its peak, the column ran in 300 dailies. Today, Buckley's most dedicated readers are the friends who receive e-mailed versions in advance, though even they, in some cases, may read him less avidly than before or wait to catch up with the selected columns reprinted in the back pages of National Review.Or so it was, until George W. Bush invaded Iraq. The war that has unhinged so many has curiously revitalized Buckley, not as the administration's most eloquent defender but as perhaps its most forceful in-house critic. Untethered to the Bush team—the only insider he knew was Donald Rumsfeld, whom Buckley suggested should consider resigning following the Abu Ghraib scandal—he is also detached from its outer ring of ideologues and flacks. He is, instead, a party of one, who thinks and writes with newfound freedom. While others, left and right, have staked out positions and then fortified them, week after week, Buckley has been thinking his way through events as they have unfolded, looking for new angles of approach, new ways of understanding, drawing on his matchless knowledge of modern conservatism and on his 50-year immersion in the American political scene. It is one of those late-period efflorescences that major figures sometimes enjoy—and, in Buckley's case, it is marked by an unexpected austerity. Like Wallace Stevens's snow man, he has developed a "mind of winter" and, as he scans the bleak vista of the Iraq disaster, "beholds nothing that is not there and the nothing that is." And it has been instructive to observe.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Before discussing what the significance of creedal confession is we must know if creedal confessions have significance at all. Aquinas, in the “Summa Theologica” (second part of the second part, question three) addresses this question (“Whether confession is an act of faith?” and “Is confession of faith necessary for salvation?”) and comes to the conclusion that “outward actions belong properly to the virtue to whose end they are specifically referred” and that therefore confession is an act of faith and furthermore that (under certain circumstances) confession is necessary for salvation. Gellman cites Aquinas’ explanation for confession’s significance: “For the outward utterance is intended to signify the inward thought.” Gellman then cites, as the Jewish “semi-creedal” texts Ani Ma’amin and Yigdal. These are compared with the Nicene Creed, an affirmation recited in Christian services. Upon first glance it would appear that the importance placed upon verbalization of belief in Christianity, the “outward utterance” of the “inward thought” is not shared by Judaism. (See the opening sentence in Maimonides' Guide I:50.) Gellman’s supposed parallels are in no way required parts of the service—in fact, no less than the great kabbalist Isaac Luria (Pri Etz Hayim, Sha’ar HaT’fila p. 15) was opposed to the recitation of Yigdal entirely. Ani Ma’amin, while less controversial, is in also not an integral part of the service, and in truth is just a convenient summary of Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles. Maimonides defines the first commandment as “to know that there is a G-d”, not to state one’s knowledge. Is there then no requirement in Judaism for an outward expression of faith? Perhaps.
However, there is another possible candidate for a Jewish “declaration of faith”, overlooked by Gellman. The Talmud (B’rakhot 13b), in describing the k’riat sh’ma of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, refers to the first verse as kabalat malkhut shamayim, or “acceptance of heavenly kingship”. According to Rashba (13b) this is reflected in the intention required for recitation, namely that one intend "שיקבל עליו מלכות שמים בהסכמת הלב" – if this is the case, there may indeed be a parallel to Aquinas’ “outward utterance intended to signify the inward thought.” But the view of Rashba is not universally accepted. According to Keren Orah (Introduction to B’rakhot) whether k’riat sh’ma is of a creedal nature is the subject of dispute between the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud.
However, there is another possible candidate for a Jewish “declaration of faith”, overlooked by Gellman. The Talmud (B’rakhot 13b), in describing the k’riat sh’ma of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, refers to the first verse as kabalat malkhut shamayim, or “acceptance of heavenly kingship”. According to Rashba (13b) this is reflected in the intention required for recitation, namely that one intend "שיקבל עליו מלכות שמים בהסכמת הלב" – if this is the case, there may indeed be a parallel to Aquinas’ “outward utterance intended to signify the inward thought.” But the view of Rashba is not universally accepted. According to Keren Orah (Introduction to B’rakhot) whether k’riat sh’ma is of a creedal nature is the subject of dispute between the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmud.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Comments I Posted on the Comments Nebach Posted on Hirhurim and Then As a Post on His Blog
Didn't you already post these comments you posted as a post? And also, what is this cheap move of posting comments on a post as another post anyhow?
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
For all who have not yet read Solly Soloveichik's article "Of (Religious) Fences and Neighbors" in the latest issue of Commentary Magazine, it is available here. The book certainly sounds interesting
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