Experimental Evidence of the Efficacy of Hispaalus
Scientific American just (June 24,2013) put up a podcast titled “Teaching People To Be Nice” by Christie Nicholson on their “Mind & Brain :: 60 Second Mind” series. To quote (in full): Can you...
Aspaqlaria Blog
Process and Permanence
When you drop a drop of ink into a cup of water, the ink spirals around in some chaotic pattern and eventually diffuses until the entire liquid is a uniform light blue. Even though...
Qinyan and Ba’alus
(Originally posted Mar 2007, now enlarged.) “Qinyan” is usually translated “acquisition”, and “ba’alus“, “ownership”. I would suggest that neither translation is precise. And this imprecision only leads to difficulties in understanding the law, rather...
Mysticism and Rationalism: Act I
I have been exposed to many misunderstandings in online conversations that revolve around the issue of Mysticism and Rationalism as competing strains in Jewish Thought. Including the idea that these accurate describe streams of...
Mixed Motives
See the value of a single mitzvah, even if performed for primarily ulterior motives! From Yerushalmi Qiddushin 22b: א”ר יוחנן: אם שמעת דבר מר’ ליעזר בנו של ר”י הגלילי, נקב אזנך כאפרכס. הזו ושמע...
Recorded Video Classes
I just completed a webinar (3 classes, 45 min each) for The Mussar Institute on Project Sinai‘s web site. Recordings of the classes are available on Project Sinai’s site: First Shiur. (The volume is...
An amazing, wonderful and fundamental Tanchuma
H/T RYGB, who posted this Tanchuma under the same title (“An amazing, …”). I would like to add translation. Medrash Tanchuma, Tzav (#3 in Warsaw ed., #5 in Buber ed.): “This is the Torah of...
Tum’ah in a Private Domain
A central theme in this “Phenomenology” category of this blog is an extension of an idea from a responsum by R’ Aqiva Eiger. That extension isn’t really part of this observation, but since I’m...
HP, Chaos, and QM
Nowadays, it’s the norm to believe that all events in the universe, even which way a leaf falls in the middle of the forest, is subject to specific Divine Providence (hashgachah peratis — HP...
What’s the rush?
דְּבַשׁ מָצָאתָ אֱכֹל דַּיֶּךָּ פֶּן תִּשְׂבָּעֶנּוּ וַהֲקֵאתוֹ. If you find honey, eat just enough; lest you get full and vomit it. – Mishlei 25:16 (In the days of the geonim and earlier rishonim it was...
The Fourth Son
We can consider the rasha, the evil child, to be a failed chakham (the wise one). He is engaged with the laws of Pesach, but unlike the first child, he rejects them. The third son, the tam, is...
Redemption and Teshuvah
My friend Neil Harris wrote over on his blog Modern Uberdox: I pray that this Pesach brings an end to the exile of the self and a redemption of the person I was created...
Halakhah: Truth or Law?
R’ Moshe Halbertal’s paper on the nature of machloqes found three classical positions. (I blogged on this back in 2005; and you can see RMH’s original 1994 paper “The History of Halakhah, Views from...
Purim and Ki Sisa
I have heard many derashos discussing the linkage between parashas Tetzaveh and Purim, which usually falls out around the week of Tetzaveh. Typically involving the discussion of the kohein‘s uniform in Tetzaveh and all...
The Rambam, Knowledge and Akrasia
(Version 3.) In the previous entry, I wrote: “Rav SR Hirsch argues that the Rambam only failed to find the meaning to the details of the mitzvos because his assumption that mitzvos serve to...
The Rambam’s Philosophy and Mesorah
The argument over whether the Rambam’s philosophy had a place in Jewish Thought didn’t end in 1306 when the Maimonidian Controversies (that began in his lifetime) died down. Even to this day, in many...
A Retrospective Implication of Bitachon
Saying that I have bitachon, trust that Hashem sets up the world I experience to maximize my opportunity for success, implies that I believe that all of my failures are due to my own...
Two Kinds of Law, Teshuvah, and Par’oh’s Heart
We open the Shemoneh Esrei by referring to Hashem as “Hashem Elokeinu vEilokei avoseinu — Hashem, our G-d, and the G-d of our ancestors….” Three distinct ways of perceiving G-d are being given here:...
Pagans in Our Midst
נענה רבן גמליאל ואמר: “צְדָקָה תְרוֹמֵם גּוֹי…” (משלי יד:לד) — אלו ישראל. דכתיב (דברי הימים א יז:כא) “וּמִי כְּעַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל…” [וגו’] “…וְחֶסֶד לְאֻמִּים חַטָּאת”(משלי שם) — כל צדקה וחסד שעכו”ם עושין, חטא הוא להן....
Taamei haMitzvos
Until adultery became too commonplace (in the days of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakai, shortly after the destruction of the Beis haMiqdash) a wife whose husband suspected her of having an affair could forbid her...
Don’t Present Oneself as a Liar!
צריך שיהיו תפילין עליו בשעת ק”ש ותפלה. A man must have tefillin on at the time of reading Shema and prayer [Shemoneh Esrei]. – Shulchan Arukh, Orach Chayim 25:4 בשעת ק”ש ותפלה: ר”ל לכל...
No rest for the weary…
(This post is a different treatment of the same themes as “Mas’ei — the Journey as a Name of G-d“.) וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן. And Yaaqov settled in the land of...
Yir’ah and its Middos
The story so far… Words are how we divide the space of ideas into more specific “countries”. Our choice of vocabulary therefore not only reflects our thoughts, but shape them. And more importantly, they...
Torah im Small Jugs
What is the role of the laws of business listed in Choshein Mishpat (the quarter of the Tur and Shulchan Aruch on financial matters)? One approach could be that working for income is a...
The Country of Yir’ah
The time it took me to write my previous post grew long, so I cut it down to being set-up material for this one just to get it out the door. Here was the...
Awe and Fear
In a relatively recent post (“Confrontation and Babel“) I invoked a quote from R’ J.B. Soloveitchik’s Confrontation to highlight the linkage between language and worldview, and thus between language and religion. Rabbi Soloveitchik writes:...
The Avos Kept the Torah
There is a 3 way dispute on Yuma 28b about whether the avos kept all of halakhah, or just those mitzvos already given: Rav: The avos kept the entire Torah R’ Ashi: … even...
Teaching Non-Jews Their Torah
In my previous post I discussed the basic problems with effective interfaith dialog. All of which may be unimportant if Judaism is a prosletizing religion. Not in the sense that anyone would suggest that...
Confrontation and Babel
וַיְהִי כָל-הָאָרֶץ שָׂפָה אֶחָת, וּדְבָרִים אֲחָדִים. And the whole earth was of one speech and of one set of ideas. – Bereishis 11:1 I blogged in the past about the difference between thinking in...
Rebooting on Sukkos
I discussed the following medrashim in more detail in Mesukim MiDevash for parashas Pinechas and in earlier blog posts “The Origins of Imperfection” and “Simchas Beis haSho’eivah“. In this post, I want to look...
Mother’s Day and Teshuvah Week
We don’t feel a need to observe Mother’s Day, because the mitzvah of kibud av va’eim means that every day is Mother’s Day. – Rabbi Shpitzer, my 5th grade rebbe This sentiment is far...
To Be or Not To Be
ת”ר: שתי שנים ומחצה נחלקו ב”ש וב”ה. הללו אומרים, “נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא, יותר משנברא.” והללו אומרים, “נוח לו לאדם שנברא, יותר משלא נברא.” נמנו וגמרו, “נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא, יותר משנברא.”...
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