Friday, July 12, 2013

Mendelssohn & Modernity: Think Tank topic

Update: Prof. Samuel Feiner (New Perspectives on the Haskala) Secularization only reached its  peak in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, then becoming a mass phe­nomenon of such proportions that the various churches, including the rabbin­  ical elite, were, in many parts of Europe, pushed to the sidelines, and the state  and modern culture provided services, institutions, and values that replaced  religion. But in the eighteenth century, the roots of secularization first  emerged among both Christians and Jews. Religion still maintained its hold  on many people, but rationalist criticism of religions grew, the deist worldview  took shape, anticlerical trends were strengthened, and amid conflicts and  struggles, the authority of priests and rabbis was weakened. In the eighteenth century, the culture of the modern city offered a secular  substitute for the experience of religious ritual in the form of entertainment,  the consumption of luxuries, and fashions that changed with dizzying fre­quency. Ambitious individuals, seeking to live as free men, unrestrained by  religious discipline, became more self-confident. The birth of the "new world"  was attended by the repressed voices of the freethinking Jews and the angry  voices of the "congregation of believers." A penetrating look into the life of  European Jewry, with the help of several perceptive individuals who left  behind fascinating testimonies, reveals dramatic changes that occurred in that  century. It discerns not only the various channels through which religion was  weakened but also identifies religiously lax and skeptical Jews whose existence  was not previously known to us.

The Torah u-Madda Journal
The Hatam Sofer’s Nuanced Attitude Towards Secular Learning, Maskilim, and Reformers 2002-2003  Footnote 110. R. Hirsch felt that had Mendelssohn completed his work, the Reform movement might never have come into being. R. Hirsch termed Mendelssohn, “one of the noblest sons of Israel” and “a strictly religious Jew, and yet . . . brilliant and highly esteemed as the German Plato.” R. Azriel Hildesheimer, founder of the Rabbinical Seminary and head of the Adat Israel community in Berlin, termed Mendelssohn “the great worldly sage.” He claimed that Mendelssohn was a loyal adherent of the Jewish religion, but that his disciples and children crudely distorted the essence of his philosophy. Mendelssohn, therefore, could not be held responsible for their actions. S. R. Hirsch, Iggerot Zafon (Jerusalem, 1952) Letter 18; Jeschurun (Frankfort, 1885), 833-834; Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition (New York, 1992), 58-59, 61, 71; Meir Hildesheimer, “Moses Mendelssohn,” note 105 above: 111-112.

29 comments:

  1. Google is your friend:

    http://www.scribd.com/doc/16745924/Avi-Shafran-The-Moses-Mendelssohn-Enigma

    http://www.hashkafah.com/index.php?/topic/60931-the-enigma-of-moses-mendelssohn-by-avi-shafran/

    An interview that is very much of interest:

    http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2010/10/interview-with-rabbi-avi-shafran-about.html

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  2. And here too:

    http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2010/10/some-additional-info-re-shafran-pelta.html

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  3.  The fate of the Mendelssohn family and their abandonment of Jewry, makes its way into every conversation about Moses Mendelssohn. Does anyone know who was the first one to use this against MM?

    I'm wondering if it wasn't Peretz Smolenskin.

    Here are the facts. Smolenskin was a prominent Maskil committed to Hebrew and Zionism. He published a periodical, and waged a very public polemic against Mendelssohn and the against the Berlin school of Haskalah.

    In 1871, Joseph Mendelssohn's son Alexander died. He was the last male descendant of Moses Mendelssohn to practice Judaism.

    The following year (1872) Smolenskin wrote, "[Mendelssohn] held to the view of the love of all humanity, and his household and friends followed him. But where did it lead to? Almost all of them converted".

    Was there someone else who conjured up this issue before Smolenskin? Was someone blaming MM, that it's unreasonable to say this person was influenced by Smolenskin?

    If not, we have another reason not to take this claim seriously. We are also faced with the following irony.

    Chareidi Jewery having been influenced by a maskil, are excoriating Mendelssohn for being influenced by secular sources!!

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  4. 1. The most important question in judging Mendelsson, in my opinion, is what kind of opposition he confronted. Were there Rabbis at the time against studying in the universities? Was anyone arguing then, that Torah Jews should not study the philosophy  of the time? Was the culture considered bad? Did anyone predict, that having embraced German culture, jews would abandon their religion? If the answer is yes, was their opinions well know? Did Mendelsson ever hear them? Was there even a hint of a consenescence? 

    From what I've come across, it seems the amswer is no. It seems Jewery at the time considered it all virtuous, they were simply not let in! Everyone would have wanted their son to get an education, however before the jewish emancipation, a jew wasn't legally allowed to just live in berlin, never mind be accepted in its universities. Remember we're talking in the middle of the 18th century here!

    Mendelsson, with his great genius, acquired what everyone wanted (without being accepted in any university or even obtaining permanent legal status in Berlin) but couldn't obtain. So what are we blaming him for? To blame him because  others abandoned yiddishkeit to try and succeed as he did doesn't seem at all right. Just as it wouldn't be right to blame a wealthy man that enjoys many comforts and respect, even if many people (and even his children) will become thieves to try and emulate him.

    The main controversy over his Chumash, as far as I can see, was that it was being used as a "קרדום לחפור בו". Not that high german is bad, just don't use the chumash as a means to learn it.

    2. The issue with his children converting can't even be discussed until a study is done to see if this was at all unusual. If when R' S.R. Hirsch came to Frankfurt there wasn't a minyan, it seems many families suffered the same fate.

    3. Comparing the areas that he failed to Rav Hirsch's successes (as Rav Schwab  does) might not be fair. First of all, if someone is not as successful or as effective as his neighbor does that mean he's bad? Can we assume he had bad intentions or even that he was wrongheaded? His neighbor was just more "gelungen", same here. 

    More importantly, by the time Rav Hirsch came on the scene, the Haskalah was fully developed. It is obviously much easier to protect yourself from a know threat than an unknown threat.

    4. Rav Schwab has uncovered some questionable passages, in Mendelssons writings themselves. There are those that brush it off because these passages were written to Gentiles, or that they are not that terrible. Even if you can't accept that, you might want to consider the following. R' Schwab himself points out that these things were not well known, presumably even by the Maskilim. So unless you assume, it proves he was always subtly teaching אפיקורסוס, I'm not sure you can attribute any of the later Haskalah to it.  

    5. We are tempted to blame individuals, for the anti-Torah movements that sprung up all over the world. We then disassociate the secularization that occurred to the gentile world in the host nation,  with what happened to our communities. Can it be that these things are all a coincidence? Isn't there a clear trend? Can't we see that as freedoms and opportunities became available, abandonment of religion was soon to follow? (I don't believe it had to be that way but that's another discussion). Isn't this how it was in every community, Jew and  להבדיל gentile alike?

    Once we establish that these trends were happening with or without any individuals input, we definitely can't blame it on someone that clearly wasn't advocating for it. By the way, the same goes with R' Kook and R' Soliveichick ztz"l in their respective communities.

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  5. It is obvioius that the Rabbis feared freedom. They well understood that there was less problems dealing with Jews who had no political, economic, social or educational freedom and lived in a society that hated them and necessitated living in homogeneous enclaves (ghettos).

    The basic issue is whether Mendelssohn was focused primarily on liberating Jews from Torah and exposing them to all these problems or whether he was concerned about how to be religious in the Modern World. The rabbis had absolutely no program for dealing with Modern World except by being reactionaries. Mendelssohn was the first major figure to try and figure it out how to be a Jew in the modern world.

    The essential problem of modernity is the issue of the secular. Areas which religion has little or nothing to say and has no authority to force compliance. Prior to emancipation the secular did not exist for the Jew and thus everything was viewed through the lense of Torah, Judaism and Rabbinical authority. After emancipation, being Jewish became a religion. A relatively small compartmentalized aspect of life. This is something that Rav Hirsch complains about often. This is why he attacked Rambam and Mendelssohn and equated them.

    The Aguda and Daas Torah was a later attempt to restore the complete dominance in all aspects of life and to give the rabbis the authority of all of that they lost through Jews being modern.

    Mendelsson is basically being made into a scapegoat to avoid facing the hard issues that he addressed head on.

    Which one of use would want to return to the life in Europe prior to emancipation? If you don't want to revert to the previous oppressed status - then what is your program to deal with the secular?

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    1. I was only the other day asking myself whether RDE is strict haredi/ radical/ MO/ or non denominational thinker. I hope none of these are insulting as they are meant to be compliments.

      Thus "They well understood that there was less problems dealing with Jews who had no political, economic, social or educational freedom and lived in a society that hated them and necessitated living in homogeneous enclaves "

      Now the Torah does not impose these absolute restrictions, as long as we keep the mitzvot and love G-d. BUt the problem is that this kind of imprisonment will eventually lead to mass defections..

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    2. "It is obvioius that the Rabbis feared freedom. They well understood that there was less problems dealing with Jews who had no political, economic, social or educational freedom and lived in a society that hated them and necessitated living in homogeneous enclaves (ghettos)"

      How about some proofs of these assertions? Can you please quote some rabbis expressing this belief? I have seen you state similar things on the site before but also was left wanting, as you did not provide evidence to support your view. Maybe it's "obvious" to you, but perhaps that's anachronistic assumption on your part. Or maybe reading an agenda into their actions where that agenda did not really exist? Whatever the case, let's see some sources, please. Thanks.

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  6. It is obvious?! At this early stage? Do we have quotes from R'Y. Emden, R' Y. Eibeshitz, or R' Landau?! Not 19th century leaders, like the Chasam Sofer, after the problems became known.

    As far as "a program to deal with a modern world" "except by being reactionaries", I wholeheartedly agree with the latter part of that quote but don't agree with the former. Bli neder I will elaborate later.

    BUT PLEASE CAN YOU SHOW ME THE OBVIOUS PART?

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    1. See the quote I just added from Prof. Feiner. The enlightenment for the goyim preceded that of the Jews by many years. there was ample opportunity to see what problem freedom and rational thought had on religion

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    2. "there was ample opportunity to see what problem freedom and rational thought had on religion"

      Ok, so who expressed their consternation and opposition to it (before it actually happened and before the defections had already proclaimed themselves enemies of Torah and/or the rabbis) ?

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    3. Certainly the Alter Rebbe. As he wrote to R. Moshe Meiseles:

      "Should Napoleon be victorious, wealth among the Jews will be abundant. . .but the hearts of Israel will be separated and distant from their father in heaven. But if our master Alexander will triumph, though poverty will be abundant. . . the heart of Israel will be bound and joined with their father in heaven. . . And for G-d's sake: Burn this letter."

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    4. Certainly the Alter Rebbe. As he wrote to R. Moshe Meiseles:

      Considering that the Napleonic wars started in 1803(which is the earliest possible moment that this letter could have been written) the Enlightment was already over outside of Judaism and they had moved on to the Romantic Era. The Jewish Enlightenment had been underway for at least 50yrs.

      The Alter Rebbe's statments can only be read as reactionary and demonstrating a deeply felt impotence among the Jewish leadership of the time as how to effectively respond to the social upheaval the world was feeling at the time.

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    5. I think the letter dates to 1806, which was around 20 years after Mendelssohn's death. Reactionary, yes, but more in the sense of keeping something out than in the sense of fighting something already strongly affecting his kahal. Napoleon was certainly highly polarizing. Other Rebbes, especially in Poland, saw the social upheaval which Napoleon set in motion in Messianic terms and favored the French side against the Tsar. Whether this was inspired by Napoleon's self-depiction in messianic terms as an appeal to Jews, or more organic and internally derived I don't know.

      The Enlightenment was slower to come to Russia, so while the Alter Rebbe may have had the examples of western Europe in mind, Levinsohn was still a teenager and Russia had then been less affected, though the Alter Rebbe's concerns were not strictly parochial and you may be fundamentally right.

      Also, to add another to Mike S.'s list below, the Alter Rebbe's son Moshe was geshmad; in fact his baptismal record was found in the national archives in Minsk. The date was around 1820 which preceded Heinrich Heine's conversion by about 5 years.

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  7. I have often wondered why the conversion of Mendelssohn's descendants is held against him in way that the conversion of family of other rabbis, for example R. Akiva Eiger, is not held against that worthy.

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  8. The following is a clear message regarding the dangers of economic success. In fact the Chofetz Chaim once told his students that each soul is given the choice of being born into wealth or poverty. His students objected because some many people were poor. He replied that you see from this that poverty is more desirable than wealth.

    Berachos (32a): R. Eleazar also said: Moses spoke insolently towards heaven, as it says, And Moses prayed unto the Lord.7 Read not el [unto] the Lord, but ‘al [upon] the Lord, for so in the school of R. Eliezer alefs were pronounced like ‘ayins and ‘ayins like alefs. The school of R. Jannai learnt it from here: And Di-Zahab.8 What is ‘ And Di-Zahab’? They said in the school of R. Jannai: Thus spoke Moses before the Holy One, blessed be He: Sovereign of the Universe, the silver and gold [zahab] which Thou didst shower on Israel until they said, Enough [dai], that it was which led to their making the Calf. They said in the school of R. Jannai: A lion does not roar over a basket of straw but over a basket of flesh. R. Oshaia said: It is like the case of a man who had a lean but large-limbed cow. He gave it lupines to eat and it commenced to kick him. He said to it: What led you to kick me except the lupines that I fed you with? R. Hiyya b. Abba said: It is like the case of a man who had a son; he bathed him and anointed him and gave him plenty to eat and drink and hung a purse round his neck and set him down at the door of a bawdy house. How could the boy help sinning? R. Aha the son of R. Huna said in the name of R. Shesheth: This bears out the popular saying: A full stomach is a bad sort, as It says, When they were fed they became full, they were filled and their heart was exalted; therefore they have forgotten Me.9 R. Nahman learnt it from here: Then thy heart be lifted up and thou forget the Lord.10 The Rabbis from here: And they shall have eaten their fill and waxen fat, and turned unto other gods.11 Or, if you prefer, I can say from here. But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked.12 R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan. Whence do we know that the Holy One, blessed be He, in the end gave Moses right? Because it says, And multiplied unto her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.13

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  9. Seridei Aish (Vol IV page 366)[From biography of Rav Hirsch by Rabbi E Klugman page 16]: The ghetto stood for hundreds of years and produced men of great stature, righteous people, who devoted th ir energies to Torah study and mitzvah observance, men whose entire joy and pleasure in life was to rejoice in the Almighty. They attained lofty spiritual levels and merited a degree of Divine inspiration that raised them high above the bitter darkness of the exile. Such peo¬ ple's words and deeds were suffused with the sanctity of the Torah, and its presence permeated their lives.
    Nonetheless, within the ghetto's walls there lived also masses of people who were not privileged to taste the Torah's pleasures and to experience its inspiration. These people thirsted for life, and their inability to attain it made them depressed. They knew only difficulty, and the lives of a significant portion of them were twisted by an ascetic melancholy.
    Finally the day came, new winds began to blow and the walls of the ghetto fell before them. Ray of hope, of light and liberty, the prospects of life and creativity, wealth and social position, wafted into the darkest corners of the ghetto, to human beings who had been so long deprived of any place in society. The innate thirst for a healthy and complete life which is so natural to every Jew, a thirst repressed for so many centuries, was reawakened amid sound and fury.
    These radical developments brought the Jewish people to a state of crisis. One-dimensional life-denying religiosity simply collapsed, totally unable to restrain its children who strayed from its framework, rejecting the indignities of oppression, who strove to break free from their constraints.
    Confusion reigned in the Jewish community. On the one side stood the elders, preservers of tradition, who defended with all their might the accepted religious way, which was predicated on a rejection of the pleasures and accomplishments of the material world. On the other side were those drunk and dizzy with their new freedom, who lashed out mercilessly at everything that was precious and holy in the traditional order of Jewish life."

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  10. The Torah u-Madda Journal
    The Hatam Sofer’s Nuanced Attitude Towards Secular Learning, Maskilim,
    and Reformers 2002-2003

    110. R. Hirsch felt that had Mendelssohn completed his work, the Reform movement
    might never have come into being. R. Hirsch termed Mendelssohn,
    “one of the noblest sons of Israel” and “a strictly religious Jew, and yet . . .
    brilliant and highly esteemed as the German Plato.” R. Azriel Hildesheimer,
    founder of the Rabbinical Seminary and head of the Adat Israel community
    in Berlin, termed Mendelssohn “the great worldly sage.” He claimed that
    Mendelssohn was a loyal adherent of the Jewish religion, but that his disciples
    and children crudely distorted the essence of his philosophy. Mendelssohn,
    therefore, could not be held responsible for their actions. S. R. Hirsch, Iggerot
    Zafon (Jerusalem, 1952) Letter 18; Jeschurun (Frankfort, 1885), 833-834;
    Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition (New York, 1992), 58-59, 61,
    71; Meir Hildesheimer, “Moses Mendelssohn,” note 105 above: 111-112.

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  11. DT, in your view, what was it about Moses Mendelssohn's conception of Judaism that could have made this hard to communicate to his disciples and children? Or were they just so swept up in events and social trends that they would have ignored his direction regardless?

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  12. A good leader sees approaching changes, prepares for them and then leads his people through them. The rabbonim of Eastern and Central Europe seem to have done the opposite. One of the criticisms of the Rav Hirsch approach of TIDE is that it produced no Gedolim. It was, however, successful in producing educated, loyal and observant Jews. The Eastern European method produces some outstanding poskim but it also left the vast majority ripe pickings for the Haskalah and the outside world. Which approach was truly better?
    As for poor Reb Mendelssohn, his history is a great case of how religious folks can revise events to fit their agenda. How many times have we seen the expression "the evil reformer Mendelssohn" in religious books as if it's taken for granted?

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    1. MGI,
      What do you think the intent of Yeravam ben Nevat was in erecting golden calves and blocking the pilgramage to Jerusalem? I promise you, it was pure lishma and Yeravam was a great tzaddik and giant gadol b'Torah. But he is judged on the results. So is Mendelssohn judged on the results. So how many times have you seen the phrase in Chazal, to describe Yeravam - 'he sinned and caused others to sin.'? Poor Yeravam.

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  13. R Shimon Schwab basically said that Mendelssohn displayed contempt for Tehillim, among other things, claiming that one of the Kapitlach was written by a court lackey tring to 'kiss-up' to Dovid HaMelech. (RSS doesn't deny that RSRH was fond of Mendelssohn, just that he didn't have the full picture.)

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  14. These are the quotes that Rav Schwab uses to claim that he has discovered shocking revelations of Mendelssohn's true assimilation orthopraxy. From what he writes - it seems he is citing a biased sample of quotes and provides absolutely no context. I was told that one expert in Jewish history who read the article dismissed them as a misunderstanding of what Mendelssohn said. In addition his claim that "the keen-sighted princes of Torah..." is a distortion of what actually happened. The Nodah B'Yehuda did not ban Mendellsohn, Rabbi Akiva Eiger was a subscriber to Menelssohn's Commentary and Maharahm Schick used the Commentary even though his rebbe the Chasam Sofer disapproved of it. In sum the Novominsker Rebbe and Rav Schwab are doing a hatchet job on Mendelssohn to compensate for the embarrassing fact that Avi Shafran wrote a cover story on Mendelssohn which wasn't totally negative.

    Rav Schwab states:
    Thus, "Judaism" became to him a rational religion of ceremonials, the Five Books of the Torah a textbook of high German and the Book of Psalms an anthology for literary connoisseurs. The keen-sighted princes of the Torah were able to see through this assimilationist orthopraxy too well to refrain from cautioning against it in the most impressive terms. Alas, their warnings went unheeded.

    Only later and much too late, the record sadly bore out their suspicions of "R Moshe Dessau.''

    We are shocked, we can hardly believe our own eyes as we read from Mendelssohn's own writings and we note how any pious Jewish children could have put the philospher from Berlin to shame in matters of religious belief.

    This disillusionment may be painful to some but instructive, and we bow before the clear vision ofthe Gedo lei Yisroel of a past generation.

    And now let the documents speak for themselves and be a warning to us all.




    " ... I am sure that you will treat the Psalms as poetry and not pay attention to the prophetic and mystical elements which Christian as well as Jewish interpreters have found in them only because they searched for these elements, having searched for these elements only because they were neither philosophers nor literary critics."

    -Mendelssohn to Hofrat Michaelis, Goettingen. Mendelssohn's Collected Writings Vol. V, p.505.

    "The character of some difficult psalms is such that you can read Into them whatever you like, presumably because we do not know the events that inspired their composition, because the author, the time and circumstances of their origin are not known, or because some of the passages in the text have been corrupted, etc. I could cite for you two psalms which commentators of both nations interpret as Messianic prophecies. I, for my part, have subjected them to more thorough study and have arrived at the conclusion that the one is a satire on avarice and the other (i.e., Ps. 110!) is a piece of flattery composed by a court poet in honor of King David when the king's armies laid siege to Rabbah. So much for that." -Moses Mendelssohn, Ungedrucktes und Unbekanntes von ihm, ed. M. Kayserling. Leipzig, 1883, p.11. Letter to Joh. Zimmerman, court physician, Hanover.


    "But as regards a great many of the psalms, I must admit that I simply do not understand them. The ones I find easiest to understand include many which I must class as very mediocre pieces of poetry, incoherent verses, repetitions of the same idea ad nauseam, and abrupt transitions and modulations which no amount of inspiration could justify .•.• "

    " ... If you but knew that we have just had eight holidays during which, as you know, one does not feel inclined to do anything except to be depressed .... "

    -Letter to Lessing, Berlin, April 29, 1757, Mendelssohn's Collected Writings Vol. V, P. 89, Leipzig, 1844

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    1. On a slightly different track, R YB Soloveitchik wrote that as a child, he once saw his grandfather, R' Chaim ztl comlpain when people were singing tehillim before Mincha on shabbat afternoon. He sad they should be learning not singing tehillim.
      Now, this is not "contempt" for tehillim, but relegation of tehillim below the learning halacha or gemara.

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  15. Giving examples that say wealth leads to great challenges (perhaps greater challenges than poverty) is a far cry from giving examples of Rabbis who said "It is better that the Jews all remain poor so it will be easier for us to control them." You don't see a distinction?

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  16. Rabbi E-

    "it seems he is citing a biased sample of quotes and provides absolutely no context"
    Can you provide said context?

    "In sum the Novominsker Rebbe and Rav Schwab are doing a hatchet job on Mendelssohn to compensate for the embarrassing fact that Avi Shafran wrote a cover story on Mendelssohn which wasn't totally negative."

    R Schwab wrote that in response to Avi Shafran? (I saw it in his selected writings or essays or speeches- don't remember.) And JO archives are offline http://www.shemayisrael.com/jewishobserver/

    =========================

    Also worth reading:
    http://www.leimanlibrary.com/texts_of_publications/49.%20R.%20Moses%20Schick%20The%20Hatams%20Sofers%20Attitude%20toward%20Mendelssohns%20Biur.pdf

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  17. Shaul you are correct - Rabbi Schwab didn't write this in response. He wrote it prior to Avi Shafran's article. The Jewish observer published exerpts from it to counter Avi Shafran's "positive" article and they added a strong letter from the Novominsker Rebbe against Mendelssohn.

    I didn't see his original article - but am just reporting what a frum history professor who specialzes in the Haskala said after reading the abreviated article of Rabbi Schwab that was published by the Jewish Observer.

    Regarding the article you provided - what was your point? It does say says that the Chasam Sofer considered Mendelssohn a heretic. However the Maharam Schick did not and in fact used his commentary. Rabbi Akiva Eiger also was a subscriber.
    ======================
    The editorial board of The Jewish Observer previously announced that it expected to publish letters on the article, "The Enigma of Moses Mendelssohn," by Rabbi Avi Shafran, and indeed a large volume of mail expressing strong opinions and citing a wealth of historical data flooded the office. Since then, we have been apprised of an article on the subject by Rabbi Simon Schwab, Mora d'.Asro of Khal Adas Jeshurun of Washington Heights, New York City. Rabbi Schwab quotes some of Mendelssohn's letters, which were previously unknown to us. We believe that they put the matter in an unequivocal perspective that makes further comment and speculative assessments unnecessary, We are presenting below excerpts from Rabbi Schwab's article.

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  18. I was told that after WWII a warehouse was discovered that was filled with volumes of Mendelssohn's commentary. The US Army asked various rabbis what to do with them. The Rabbis weren't interested in using the volumes, but they also didn't want them destroyed - so they told the Army to leave them in the warehouse.

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  19. An interesting article showing how difficult it is to pin the Chasam Sofer down appeared in Torah U'Maddah Journal 2002-2003

    Hatam's Sofer's Nuanced attitude towards Secular Learning, Maskilim and Reformers.

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  20. Rabbi E-

    "Regarding the article you provided - what was your point?"

    None in particular. I drink up pretty much anything DR Leiman writes, and thought that article was (marginally) relevant to the topic at hand. Sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase...

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