Sunday, August 14, 2022

Hashkofa alert

 Why are people so concerned today with criticizing gedolim whereas we find that Chazal often looked to uncover sins that  are not stated explicitly in the Torah

For example they say Adam was a heretic Avraham's lack of faith caused the Jews to  go into exile in Egypt and Yosef was almost seduced and lacked bitachon or that Yehoshua wanted the Jews to rebel  and caused the nation to sin

Update:

Got three types of explanation. 1) We don't understand Chazal and why they did anything and we are such inferior creatures we can not possibly even question the activities of a Gadol. When I mentioned the idea of a Gadol committing a crime such as bank robbery. The answer was a Gadol would never do such and if he did he is not a Gadol. 2) As a result of the Haskala attacking authority figures, it was collectively decided never to criticize Gadolim. 3) Gedolim today are lesser people and any criticism detsroys their authority while in earlier generations they were much bigger and were not significantly damaged by criticism

According to these views we can not utilize the conduct of Chazal and rishonim in this matter! But clearly if a Gadol actual made a mistake - according to consensus of rabbinic authorities or is making a chillul HaShem - it can be noted

Sanhedrin (44a): Rav Naḥman says that Rav says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “The poor man speaks entreaties, but the rich man answers with impudence” (Proverbs 18:23)? “The poor man speaks entreaties”; this is a reference to Moses, who addressed God in a tone of supplication and appeasement. “But the rich man answers with impudence”; this is a reference to Joshua, who spoke to God in a belligerent manner.
The Gemara asks: What is the reason that Joshua is considered to have answered God with impudence? If we say that it is because it is written: “And he laid them out before the Lord,” and Rav Naḥman says that this means that Joshua came and cast the spoils down before God as part of his argument, this is difficult: Is that to say that Pinehas did not act the same way in the incident involving Zimri and Cozbi? As it is written: “Then stood up Pinehas, and executed judgment [vayefallel], and the plague was stayed” (Psalms 106:30), and Rabbi Elazar says: And he prayed [vayitpallel], is not stated; rather, “and he executed judgment [vayefallel]” is stated, which teaches that he entered into a judgment together with his Creator. How so? He came and cast Zimri and Cozbi down before God, and said to Him: Master of the Universe, was it because of these sinners that twenty-four thousand members of the Jewish people fell? As it is written: “And those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand” (Numbers 25:9).

Rather, Joshua’s belligerence is seen from this verse: “Why have You brought this people over the Jordan” (Joshua 7:7), as if he were complaining about God’s treatment of Israel. This too is difficult, as Moses also said a similar statement: “Why have You dealt ill with this people? Why is it that You have sent me?” (Exodus 5:22). Rather, Joshua’s belligerence is seen from here, from the continuation of the previously cited verse in Joshua: “Would that we had been content and had remained in the Transjordan” (Joshua 7:7).

§ With regard to the verse that states: “And the Lord said to Joshua: Get you up; why do you lie this way on your face?” (Joshua 7:10), Rabbi Sheila taught in a public lecture: The Holy One, Blessed be He, said to Joshua: Your own sin is even worse than that of the other Jews who sinned, as I said to the Jewish people: “And it shall be when you have gone over the Jordan, that you shall set up these stones” (Deuteronomy 27:4), and you have already distanced yourselves sixty mil from the Jordan River, and you have yet to fulfill the mitzva.

After Rav Sheila finished his lecture and went out, Rav, who had been present but remained silent, placed an interpreter alongside him, who would repeat his lecture in a loud voice so that the public could hear it, and he taught: The verse states: “As the Lord commanded Moses His servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Moses” (Joshua 11:15). This indicates that Joshua could not have been guilty of a grave offense such as delaying in setting up the stones.

If so, what is the meaning when the verse states: “Get you up,” hinting that Joshua was in fact responsible for some transgression? The matter should be understood as follows: God said to Joshua: You caused the Jewish people to sin, as had you not dedicated all the spoils of Jericho to the Tabernacle treasury, the entire incident of Achan taking the spoils improperly would not have occurred.

55 comments :

  1. Do you mean criticism of gedolim is not new, and was already done by chazal?

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  2. There's a cast difference between Gedolei Rabbonim or Chazal issuing a criticism versus criticism made by laymen.

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  3. Dr Ephraim shach studied in the University of Ottawa, in Canada, as well as at Yeshiva University, in NYC. It was there that he earned a degree in Jewish history. For many years he was associated with Israel’s Ministry of Education as well as the director of the education in the city of Netanya, Jerusalem district head, and other senior positions..




    So it's no surprise his father attacked YU.
    Purely personal reasons.

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  4. pure coincidence?

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  5. pure conspiracy theory!
    correlation always shows a causal relation - you claim a secular education?!

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  6. Seems you didn't comprehend the basis of this study :

    imposition of order and meaning on the environment, including the perception of causal relations between random events.



    There is nothing random about the 2 events.

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  7. why is the allegation against rabbi Goren that he took a bribe to provide a particular heter not a conspiracy theory?
    I was not around at the time. It's possible, but it also fits your definition of conspiracy theory.

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  8. Ephi studied history.

    guess what is attributed to his father ztl :

    "He wrote that any secular studies were banned by the sages of the Talmud, and that specially the study of psychology and history is pure heresy."

    More conspiracy theory?

    Perhaps you will find some litvish who will say this proves he was right. Ephi 's kids became chilonim.

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  9. Which is that a layman who thinks he is correct and that Godol HaDor is wrong, needs to face the fact that he the layman is more fallible himself and almost surely the incorrect one.

    Now if it was another Godol making the objection, we'd have a different discussion.

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  10. you stated the following nonsense

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  11. you claimed Rav Schach's dislike for YU was a personal issue because his son went there but now you state he was against the teaching of any secular studies. and therefore not specifically against YU. Get your act together before typing nonsense

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  12. "psychology and history is pure heresy."

    Didn't his son become expert in those two fields?

    Why isn't accounting or medicine heresy?

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  13. Nope
    There is a mishna where Gedolei hador have a question, and they ask 2 garbage men for direction. The teaching they give is that even gedolim should accept truth, even from a lowly layman.

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  14. I have Levi book here on my coffee table. In ch 6 he writes a theory of synthesis of Torah psychology.
    Freud is largely true and supported by Torah sources. he talks of yetzer hara, yetzer hatov. It's not deterministic.
    even his defence mechanism ideas are Jewish. chazal say if a person questions another ß genealogy, we must suspect him.
    And aveira goreret aveira - so indulging in one aveiro tips the balance of free will towards determinism (though not absolute).

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  15. how can it not be a personal issue?

    Is RSK's support for his doctor's daughter not a personal issue?

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  16. If he was against all secular studies you cant simply claim that one college was attacked for personal reasons!
    I love everyone but some I love personally?!

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  17. Freud is not largely true. Do you have an Oedipal complex. Are all claims of sexual abuse simply fantasies? Are people unhealthy psychologically to the degree they are moral? Does everyone go through the same stages of development, Is the superego something to best get rid of? man has free-will

    It is nice to cheery pick elements which are acceptable but it is intellectually dishonest. I was referring to his sefer on Torah study

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  18. Very strange proof! what does it actually say?

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  19. Nice try but aside from the slogan where is the proof?. It doesn't say that a student should never correct his teacher because he is probably mistaken

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  20. I saw on Rav Moshe b Chaim's Mesora site, there is even a a gemara discussing incestual dreams!

    Freud is saying the ego mediates between the 2 forces of id and superego. That is a secular description of what we say about Free will. When the Torah says Choose Life, it is speaking to the ego, who makes the executive decisions - do i eat the cake with treif ingredients, or make do with a chocolate bar until I get home?
    it is not cherry picking, there are 100s of different meforshim on Freud. So maybe cherry pick on which interpretation one likes.

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  21. That is precisely how the litvish love bein adam l'chaveiro is.
    A docotr or professor from Rambam hospital, or Ben Gurion university, ok, he is just 1 opinion, deserves no mention. A doctor who attended to the Gedolim - that is different, he is a tzaddik, he is compared to Maimonides and Nachmanides, will be given Kavod in shul.

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  22. I assume neither you or Levi ever met a Freudian disciple
    They have total contempt for religion as did Freud,
    Try reading his Moses and Monotheism - the roots of evil in Western culture were the pernicious ideas introduced by religion

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  23. that book is apikorsus,
    However, Moshe does tell am Yisroel that he is forced to die in the desert because of their stiffnecked behaviour.
    Western culture, xtianity introduced some evil, they persecuted Jews for hundreds of years for our alleged deicide. Islam also continues to do this because we, or the xtians didn't accept their prophet.

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  24. Incestual dreams are mentioned at the end of Berachos that does not validate either Freud or incest

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  25. They mentioned, which presumably means such a phenomenon existed in the time of the Gemara. And teva is not nishtaneh, hence freud also came across the same data or evidence - and gave a psychoanalytic theory to explain it.

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  26. To be more precise, the Oedipus complex existed even in the time of the gemara. Chazal apparently tried to reduce guilt for this phenomenon.

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  27. really? Source?
    Do you have or ever have an Oediplr complex/
    Have you ever known someone with this disorder?

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  28. You are showing enormous ignorance
    Freud and his disciples were not claiming the existence in some people but claimed that there is a universal scheme that we all go through and that resolution of each stage was needed to progress to the next stage.
    Not many accept this nonsense today but in the recent past it was believed and acted upon with religious fervor
    But other theories such as Behaiorism exist today and are incompatible with Judaism

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  29. anyone who loves their mother has a healthy Oedipus complex. If ones parents argue, and the child sides with the mother, again it's an element of Oedipus.
    I'm not taking it to the same extreme as Freud.
    Why do chazal say that the rebellious youth only applies when the parents speak with one voice and not argue? Because there is this possibility for violence.
    What is attachment theory, and why do so many violent people have attachment disorder?

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  30. Why is behaviourism incompatible? It's a basic theory about conditioned response. Within some limits it is reproducible. We also say mitzva goreret mitzva and the opposite. Many rabbis say influences such as TV, movies etc are bad, and condition us in a bad way.
    Behaviourism has been developed to better theories such as social learning Theory, but the concept of conditioned response has many applications. Problem is it does not deal with the subconscious, that's why we need Freud.

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  31. Rav Bleich write sin an essay that we all have some material bribe in this world. in his prosaic language he wrote that every baby , when he imbibes his first drop of milk from his mother's breast, is materially bribed.

    Now, you as a psychologist are presumably saying that theories are ridiculous, and have no place in effective therapy. But i am looking at the theories in terms of how they might have been constructed, on what evidence, and how they were expanded to explain "everything".
    A young child does not know much love, except for what he feels towards the ones who care for him.

    One problem about Freud is he draws these universal theories from sources like Greek myths. On the other hand, from my observations of both Jews and non Jews, many men are closer to their mothers, and women to their fathers. It is the scope of the theory that is problematic - the kernel seems intuitively true.

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  32. Behavioursism is an approach to life which is incompatible with Torah
    You are basically saying if Jews breathe and goyim breathe the must be identical!

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  33. You are repeating you learned mantra without giving any sort of reasoning or argument.
    Nope - if Jews have the same genetic mutation that causes Gaucher's disease as goyim, they will be at risk of developing the same symptoms, and require the same treatment, if it exists.

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  34. You are making the ignorant claim that if something is partially true it is entirely true
    Claiming that the influence of reinforcers is valid sometimes is not saying they are sole determiner of behavior

    Kernel proofs or validation are nonsense!

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  35. You clearly are ignorant of what Oedipal complexes are about!

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  36. if something is partially true, it competes with another system which is also partially true.
    Do you have the psychological text book which is 100% True?
    There's no such thing.

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  37. So here's what I want to know: the FBI raided Trump's home. Won't say why. Won't say what they found. Haven't even published the warrant for the press.
    Now, I see two possibilities
    1) The Dem's are desperate - the Jan 6 hearings have come up short. Yeah, you could say Trump encouraged treasons or you could say he simply encouraged a bad situation and then allowed his ego and immaturity to let it spiral out of control. One's bad, one's just incompetent but not treason. And there's not enough proof either way when all your evidence is "Well I was down the hall and heard..."
    2) The raid was meant to be a failure. The FBI already is at historic lows in public trust and confidence. Now they, at the behest of the current administration (because that's the level you'd need to authorize this) search the home of the former president and fail to come up with anything that matters (oh, I'm sure CNN and Politifact will pretend it does). Trump revives his anti-corruption harangue and rides the outrage back to a massive Congressional majority in November and another stay in the White House in 2024.
    What do you think?

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  38. his theory is false
    however it it can be reduced to to a better theory like bawlby did did with attachment.

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  39. "You are making the ignorant claim that if something is partially true it is entirely true"

    Such a claim would be ignorant, however it was not claimed by myself. I said he expands his theories to explain everything - that is a criticism of his method, not a support.

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  40. That is standard procedure with FBI no needf or conspiracy theories

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  41. All things which are not 100% true are equivalently true?!

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  42. not equivalent.

    Compare cognitive dissonance, a more accepted theory, to denial, a major Freudian concept.

    The newer theory is rewording Freud's defence mechanisms (his strongest theory), and is much more widely accepted. It doesn't offer anything new in substance, or mechanism.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201504/the-psychology-denial%3famp

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  43. what's your all true book of pathology?

    CBT, which is widely accepted, has main element from behaviourism. Does that mean frum people need modified CBT, without the B?

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  44. simply wrong
    CD is not a derivative or rewording of freud's denial

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  45. It is not actually as good as Freud. Or to put it another way, CD just points out that there are 2 types of information that conflict. It does not really say what happens to resolve or suppress the conflict. Freud is actually referring to something such a s CD - and people react, or defend that feeling of dissonance in a number of ways. One of them can be denial. there is rationalisation/intellectualisation. there are more complex reactions, such as repression. which can occur eg in cases of abuse and other trauma.
    Freud provides the mechanisms or processes. Festinger is not actually teaching a new observation or process - he is simply putting old wine in a new bottle.

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  46. Abstract
    Defense mechanisms (sometimes called adaptive mental mechanisms) reduce conflict and cognitive dissonance during sudden changes in internal and external reality. If such changes in reality are not ‘distorted’ and ‘denied,’ they can result in disabling anxiety and/or depression.

    https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/defence-mechanisms#:~:text=Abstract,disabling%20anxiety%20and%2For%20depression.

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  47. nonsense!
    You clearly know nothing about the topic

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  48. And therefore all defense mechanisms are equivalent?!

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  49. the others are a separate discussion
    And I have made too many comments in a short Space of time. Time for others to contribute more

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  50. Gedolim aren't always happy to point out an error of fellow gedolim.
    F it's another group, then it's easier. But it does occasionally happen.

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  51. What's that have to do with it? If a Godol HaDor and a layman disagree, the vast likelihood is that the Godol HaDor is correct and the layman is incorrect.

    Why would you assume the Godol HaDor is incorrect and the layman correct?

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