American Infrastructure

The Americans keep creating unsustainable infrastructures: first they base their economy on the displacement and enslavement of millions of Africans in an era when slavery had become obsolete, then they design thousands of miles of roads which pre-suppose an inexhaustible supply of petrol for automobiles...

Torture, Mountain Climbing and Shidduchim

okay, for the first time in writing, my "separation makes the heart grow fonder" idea!:

I've always been a fan of the saying that "separation makes the heart grow fonder". In other words in any relationship, being available too often, being ever-present, is not beneficial but is in fact detrimental to a relationship. For with anything comes boredom. Even the object of your romantic desire can quickly become "boring" to you. But if you're forced to be away from them for a while, upon their return comes a rejuvenated closeness and intimacy that was not possible before. Which is the rationalization given for the Purity Laws as they apply to menstruation.

This principle doesn't only apply to a relationships though. It's applicable to many other aspects of life. In all things: if someone experiences a continuous orgy of pleasure, after a while it is not within his ability to experience pleasure. Whether it be in food, sexuality, sleep, sport, honor; anything which Man finds pleasing. Simply put: whatever you 'have', you don't 'want' anymore. You want what you don't have. It's obvious really. The glutton does not enjoy a good meal as much as the pauper. A licentious man does not enjoy sexuality as much as the celibate man. The absence of a thing, in a sense, is the only way to really have it! Absence IS presence. Abstinence IS sexuality. Hunger IS food. Pain IS pleasure! They are points of contrast and comparison. This idea has a central role in thought-processes, and I apply it to many aspects of life.

I once happened upon a blog that criticized Rabbi Avigdor Miller's asceticism. For example, after his death it was revealed that Rav Miller slept on a board, not a bed, he would constantly stop eating while he ate, and many other such practices. This blog called Rav Miller's chamber a torture chamber. I objected. I saw he was an atheist so I told him that not only did causing yourself privation make sense in Judaic terms, but it made sense in general as well. I told him about a television program I once saw, which told the story of a group of German adventure seekers who climbed parts of the alps that are usually traversed by no one. At the end of it they were starving and half dead. When one of them was asked by reporters why he did it, he said that when he goes back to Berlin now and has a beer, it'll be the best beer he ever had! He understood that pleasure does not come without privation.

Another aspect of life I've been associating this principle with recently is the senses of entitlement v.s. appreciation. Here in the my hometown of Brooklyn, more than anywhere else I've seen, and especially in the realm of dating (as is no wonder), I've come across people who have always had far more than I, and yet grew up in an absent-minded sense of great entitlement. Especially the daughters of "our community", as they're provided for more than the boys. Especially the fairer ones. They date as if they're trying on clothes. And they'll only take what they feel entitled to, which is probably part of the "shidduch crisis". I think that had these picky girls known loneliness, in it's severer forms, they would be less picky. Again, it is privation that humbles the soul, and brings it from haughtiness to humility, and therefore, to happiness.

Flesh-Eating

Continuing in my never-ending exposition of Naturalism v.s. the technological lifestyle, I've been thinking a bit about our consumption of the flesh of creatures less intelligent than ourselves. "Meat". Meat is something which never gets old and never will get old. While there are individuals today who will consume no flesh, there were people like that in the distant past as well. Such a thing can never catch on. It's funny that, two thousand years ago people enjoyed eating meat, ...ten thousand years ago people enjoyed eating meat. As long as there were humans and as long as there were animals people and all creatures enjoyed eating meat. And even ourselves, as we engage our high-tech computers and fly around in our planes and space shuttles even, we still find no satisfaction like the satisfaction of sinking our teeth into the flesh of another animal, the same as any hyena would. All other foods simply don't compare. I mean, who "makes shabbos" out of beans?

הָקֵם תָּקִים

אין ספק שלעזור לאדם לשחרר את גלגלי מכוניתו מן השלגים הינו בכלל "כִּי תִרְאֶה חֲמוֹר שֹׂנַאֲךָ רֹבֵץ תַּחַת מַשָּׂאוֹ..." ו"הָקֵם תָּקִים עִמּוֹ". ח

Philosophers by race

Now, I'm not going to go on about this, because I can't, I don't know (nor can I remember) enough about the subject, but: I saw a new (good) Jewish book on the חגים in stores, in which the back cover quoted a Greek philosopher as saying that the Jews were "philosophers by race". I liked that line so much I was thinking about making it the title of this blog! Because while it's true that, for example, in בית שני times there was a lot of קריאה, שינון, and לימוד going on, but without a doubt the Jews were also very much preoccupied with philosophical thought, analysis and criticism.

In general I personally feel that philosophy and logic shouldn't just be the basis of religious thought, but of all thought. It doesn't matter where you're coming from in the spectrum of intellectual thought; of first and foremost importance is always using the tools of logic, and of philosophical thought, analysis and criticism, and applying them to every idea new and old to you.

(As an aside I think it's very worth while looking into the writings of the European enlightenment writers (1600's to 1900's) on the ideas of logic and philosophy, because there cannot be a proper exchange of human ideas without them!)

ממני העבד-

מהו גדר -איכא דרכא אחרינא

ספק- היכא אמרינן היכא דאיכא דרכא אחרינא נקרא רשע, והיכא אמרינן שכמעט דבר זה הוא בגדר ליכא דרכא אחרינא. כגון טלפון ואינטרנט שכמעט לכמה אנשים הם הכרחי חיים. וצע"ג

!?הרמ"א מצטט את הרמב"ם

לעיין במר"ן סימן רמ"ו סעיף כ"א, ובפרט ברמ"א שם. (אשר שם מביא הרמ"א את דברי הרמב"ם הידועים בענין הנאה ולקיחת ממון בשביל ת"ת. (על אף היות הרמ"א אשכנזי- וידוע שהאשכנזים ובפרט בארץ ליטא, ובפרט בדורות האחרונים, ובפרט בזמנינו בא"י ובאה"ב בהחלט לא נוהגים על פי דעת הרמב"ם בענין הזה. אז יוצא איפוא שהאשכנזים עצמם לפני 500 שנה החזיקו ונהגו (אפילו אולי ויתר ממר"ן והספרדים) כדברי הרמב"ם! (שאסור לרוב הבחורים והאנשים ללמוד תורה בלי דרך לפרנס את עצמם). ועוד חזון למועד

ממני העבד-