Turmoil in Israel, trepidation in Palestine

 https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/3/10/turmoil-in-israel-trepidation-in?traffic_source=KeepReading

Soon after the fascists and fanatics took the reins of power in Israel and began transforming the Jewish state into an autocratic state bordering on a theocracy, secular and liberal forces took to the streets. It was a desperate attempt to stop the new government from fast-tracking legislation that curtails the powers of the judiciary and subordinates the country’s Supreme Court to the whims of the ruling coalition’s slim majority in parliament.

Putin says Russia is in a fight for the existence of the state

 https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-734294

Putin has framed Moscow's year-long invasion as a defensive pushback against what he sees as a hostile West bent on expanding into territories historically ruled by Russia.

"So for us this is not a geopolitical task, but a task of the survival of Russian statehood, creating conditions for the future development of the country and our children," he said during a visit to an aviation factory in Buryatia, some 4,400 km (2,750 miles) east of Moscow.

Leaving religion 8 reasons -Rav Saadiya Gaon

 Emuna ve’Deos (Introduction 7) I should add to this a list of what are, in my view, the causes of disbelief, falling into lies and a spirit of resistance to the truths of the miracles and speculation concerning religious belief. I see eight of these often. These eight are: 1) the natural burdensomeness of effort for humans 2) The stupidity of many of them. 3) Man’s instinct to fulfill his desires in terms of, food, feasting, sex and property. 4) An aversion to inquiry and an inability to listen attentively or engage in sustained thought. 5) People’s brazenness and pride which causes them to not concede there is any wisdom hidden from them nor any science that stands before him that he has yet to master. 6) Something someone heard in the name of one of the dissenters which touched his heart and worried him and he is thus stuck in worry his entire life. 7) A weak proof he heard from one of the monotheists and he thinks, therefore, that all of them are like this. 8) Someone for whom hatred exists between him and certain monotheists and this causes him to, hating their God.

Chief Rabbi: 'We need dialogue, I'm worried about civil war'

 https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/368899

"I'm not getting involved in the details of the reform, but we have to explain to them, to convince them, to meet with them, that at least in matters of religion, there is no place for the court's involvement," he added.

The Chief Rabbi brought the example of the 2018 ruling that the ban on bringing chametz (leavened products that are forbidden on Passover) into hospitals over Passover was illegal. "For instance, when it comes to chametz. People will be afraid to be hospitalized because there is chametz in the hospital. We have to explain it to them. Love your brother as you love yourself. I don't understand other issues, and I don't talk about matters that I don't understand," Rabbi Yosef explained.

Are We Headed for Another Civil War?

 https://www.bu.edu/articles/2019/are-we-headed-for-another-civil-war/

But it would have to be something else to call this a “civil war.” That would indicate a willingness on the part of masses of people to engage in violence against their political enemies. That happened in the 1860s, in part because people had come to see their political opponents in extreme, even demonic, ways and found it impossible to find any middle ground. Maybe our politics and culture are moving in that direction, but I don’t see it yet.

Trump derangement syndrome - Lawyer Compares Trump to Jesus Christ Ahead of Expected Indictment

 https://www.newsweek.com/lawyer-compares-trump-jesus-christ-ahead-expected-indictment-1788728

"President Trump will be arrested during Lent—a time of suffering and purification for the followers of Jesus Christ," McBride wrote on Twitter. "As Christ was crucified, and then rose again on the 3rd day, so too will [Donald Trump]. Violence is never the answer. Winning the election is. Vote for Trump!"

He added in a further tweet: "JESUS LOVES DONALD TRUMP. JESUS DIED FOR DONALD TRUMP. JESUS LIVES INSIDE DONALD TRUMP. DEAL WITH IT."

What is an indictment?

 https://thehill.com/homenews/3906654-what-is-an-indictment/

The way it works for felony charges in the U.S. is that a grand jury will examine all potential evidence to determine if a crime was committed. If the jury, generally made up of 16-23 people, decides there’s enough evidence that a crime occurred, an indictment will come.

Despite Trump’s claim that he will be arrested Tuesday, it’s unlikely the former president would be arrested, since Trump officials themselves told Associated Press they would “ follow the normal procedures” if an indictment does come down. An arrest would only happen in the event an indicted person doesn’t surrender, according to AP.

Baldness and heresy

 Netziv (Vayikra 13:41): The verse states karachas which is the baldness on the back of the head prior to gebachas which is the baldness on the front of the head. Why did the verse distinguish between them? ...We can explain this according to the view that the baldness is a sign of the sin of errors in theology. There are in fact two types of error. The first type is errors that result from philosophical analysis. The second type results from lack of belief that does not result from philosophy. It is known that the back of the brain deals with decisions that a person makes Intellectual analysis occurs in the front of the brain. The fact is that errors in emuna are much more common and worse than mistakes that result from the intellectual analysis. That is why there are two types of baldness and why the one associated with errors without philosophy is stated first in the verse. 

Good and bad tzadikim

 Netziv (Introduction to Bereishis): Bereishis was called Sefer HaYoshor (the Book of the Upright) by the prophets. The praise of Uprightness is to reinforce G‑d’s judgment in destroying the Second Temple which as a generation of tzadikim and chassidim and those devoted to learning Torah - however they were not Upright in the mundane world. Therefore, because of the baseless hatred in their hearts to each other, they suspected that whomever they saw who did not conduct himself according to their opinion in Yiras Shamayim - must be a heretic. Consequently, this led to much killing and all the evils in the world until the Temple was destroyed. Thus, there was an acknowledgement of the Uprightness of G‑d’s judgment in that He would not tolerate tzadikim like these. Rather He wanted tzadikim who were upright in the world. Because even if the non‑upright tzadikim were motivated by religious consideration - such conduct destroys the world.

Prophet vs astrologer

 Rambam (Introduction to Mishna) One should not think, "Since a prophet proves he is genuine by the fact that his predictions come true, then all fortunetellers, astrologers and mind readers can claim to be prophets, because we see with our own eyes that they predict the future every day!"…I want to put it this way: Fortunetellers, astrologers and all others in this category do indeed predict future events, but their predictions are only partially true, while the remainder inevitably turns out to be false. We see this happen all the time, and even the fortunetellers themselves do not deny this. The only way that one fortuneteller is better than the next is that he told fewer lies than his colleague did. But that all of a fortuneteller's predictions should come true is simply impossible. These crystal gazer do not even pretend or boast that their predictions will come true in all details. One fortuneteller might say, "This year there will be a drought; there will be no rainfall at all this year," when in fact a small amount of rain will fall. Or another might say, "Tomorrow it will rain", while it actually will rain on the day after. And even such a near miss will happen only to an eminent expert in the art of the occult, one of the authorities who are quoted in books. Yeshayah spoke about these diviners when he challenged Babylonia, "You are helpless despite all your art. Let them stand up and help you no, the astrologers, the stargazers, who predict parts of the months' events, whatever will come upon you. Our Rabbis  commented that Yeshaya stated, "who predict parts of the events", and the he did not state "who predict those events in their entirety". The testimonies and predictions of the prophets however, are altogether different. All their prophesies come true word for word and letter for letter, and not even the slightest detail of anything they say in the name of HaShem remains unfulfilled… This is what Yirmiyah had in mind when he said that the visions of people who claim to have prophetic power must be proven to be correct in every detail. He would discredit the false prophets and demolish their claims to prophecy, saying, "Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream; and let him who has received My word report My word faithfully! How can straw be compared to grain?" says HaShem (Yirmyah 23:28). The Sages explain this to mean that prophecy is crystal clear without any elements of falsehood blended in, just as grain kernels are separate from straw. The dream and similar things that are based on interpretations are mixed with untruths just as straw that contains kernels of wheat. "Just as it is impossible to have grain without straw, so too it is impossible [for an ordinary person] to have a dream without senseless matters" 

Rejecting Agada is not heresy - R SR Hirsch

 Rav S. R. Hirsch (Letter on Agada): Without doubt the greatness and loftiness of the wisdom and ethics of our Sages found in their Agada and Medrash is beyond measure. It is certain that they planted in their orchards of wisdom the knowledge and understanding that their pure spirits drew from the springs of Torah and mitzvos. That is why they glorified and praised the words of Agada which draws a person’s heart and brings him to love his Father in Heaven. In addition, since even the ordinary conversation of a Torah scholar needs to be studied, so surely this is true of the statements our Sages made with the intent of teaching and improving us. There is nothing in Agada which is meaningless and if it seems that way it is entirely because of our inability to comprehend. Nevertheless, our Sages put a great barrier between Agada and Halacha by stating that one does not learn Halacha from Agada and that Agadic statements do not have to be consistent with each other. This makes sense in my opinion since Agadic statements are not built upon Tradition from Sinai which is the basis for the covenant that was created there. They are in fact based entirely upon the individual human reasoning of wise men. It is quite obvious that any genuinely intelligent person will readily submit to each and every one of our Sages even for matters that are not from Tradition but concerning human reasoning. Furthermore, each one of our Sages is greater than all of us put together and that we are like grasshoppers in relationship to their greatness. Nevertheless, Agada is not part of our obligation to accept as Jews. Therefore, if a person’s reasoning leads him to reject any statement of Agada he is not considered as a heretic. This is especially true since the Sages themselves differ on so many issues and there is no rule whose view is authoritative as there is concerning halacha.

Inadverdant heresy

 Rav Elchonon Wasserman (Explanations of Agados #2): The view of the Rambam is that a person who believes G d is physical is a heretic. The Raavad commented: “There are greater and better people than the Rambam who erred in this issue because of mistakenly accepting the literal meaning of verses and agada.” I heard in the name of Rav Chaim Brisker that the Rambam views that there is no such thing as inadvertent heresy. Irrespective of how a person arrives at a mistaken belief, the fact is that he believes something which is heretical. Furthermore, it is impossible to be a member of the Jewish people without proper faith. Rav Chaim used to say that “a nebach apikorus (mistaken heretic) is also a heretic.” It would appear that he must be correct since all heretic and idol worshippers are mistaken. Obviously there is no one more mistaken than one who sacrifices his son for idol worship and yet he is subject to capital punishment. However, this approach is problematic since a baby also doesn’t have proper faith and yet he is part of the Jewish people. Furthermore, a person who was denied proper education (tinok shenishbah) is allowed to bring a sacrifice to atone  -  without being labeled as a heretic. Thus from these two cases it would seem that the Torah exempts an unwitting error also in the realm of beliefs? This can be answered by what we mentioned previously  -  the foundation principles of faith are obvious and no intelligent person could accept heretical beliefs. It is only because a person wants to reject his obligations to G d that he rationalizes that religious beliefs are not correct. Therefore, there is no such thing as an inadvertent heretical belief. On the other hand, if a person doesn’t intend to rebel against religion but mistakenly thinks something sinful is permitted by the Torah  -  then this is truly inadvertent. Perhaps this is what the Raavad meant that the person erred “because of misunderstanding verses and agada.” In other words, the person erred not because he wanted to reject religion but because he mistakenly accepted the literal meaning of religious texts. Thus, the Raavad would classify him as someone who mistakenly says a sin is permitted according to the Torah and therefore inadvertent heresy does exist… The Rambam on the other hand seems to feel that one could not err in thinking that G d has a body and that if he was serious about his religion it would be obvious to him that the texts cannot be taken literally…

Secular studies

 Rashbatz (Magen Avos 2:19): Know how to reply to the heretic. This is the justification of our practice to learn secular knowledge in order that we can reply to them and tell them that they have no proofs that contradict the Torah and Prophets. This is not a violation of the prohibition of learning books not included in the Bible - that applies only to books like Ben Sira which are part of the ancient Wisdom Literature or books written by heretics which lack wisdom and are just a waste of time. Furthermore, the prohibition of learning Greek Wisdom… does not apply to wisdom which is learned through intellectual analysis but refers to a skill that existed in Talmudic times for communicating by hints and allusions… In fact, this skill is not inherently prohibited but was prohibited because of its role in a particular event in the Destruction of the Temple…. The apparently prohibition to keep your children away for higayon - but higayon is not logic or rhetoric. Rashi says it refers to idle chatter… In sum, those books which are based upon intellectual analysis are not prohibited and someone who reads them should accept that which is true and will learn to reply to their claims which are against the Torah. We find this with R’ Meir whose teacher was a heretic and would accept the truth and discard the falsehoods… Furthermore Chagiga (11b) states that one can investigate anything concerning this world but not which above or below it and not which is before and after it. Therefore, it is permitted to investigate scientifically anything connected with this world. We are only prohibited to read those books which don’t contain knowledge concerning reality.

Personal perfection and spirituality

 Rambam(Shemonah Perakim #7): You should know that every prophet only experienced prophecy after he has acquired all the appropriate personality traits… Chazal indicated this by saying that “Prophecy only manifests itself in one who is wise, strong and rich.” … Strength here is referring to moral strength not physical strength  However prophecy is not conditional on these personality traits being perfect. We see that even though Shlomo HaMelech was a prophet nevertheless he possessed imperfections as we see by his desires i.e., his many wives… We also see that David HaMelech was a prophet in spite of acting cruelly. Even though this cruelty was only manifested against idol worship and heretics and he was merciful with Jews, nevertheless G‑d said that because of this imperfection he was not allowed to build the Temple. We find that Eliyahu had a problem with anger - even though it was directed entirely to heretics - our Sages tells us that he was consequently not fit to be a leader nor was his zealotry appropriate for others to emulate. We find Shmuel also manifested failings in his fear of Shaul and Yaakov in his fear of Esav. These type of improper attributes are a barrier against a prophet getting close to G‑d. The more imperfection the greater distance is created. Consequently the imperfection can diminish the quality of prophecy or eliminate it altogether…