YeshivaThe torah world Gateway
Beit Midrash
- Jewish Laws and Thoughts
- Serving Hashem, Mitzvot and Repentance
Both the Jewish secular and religious worlds continue to fight their intellectual and substantive battles with the same tactics that were employed - unsuccessfully and divisively - in the nineteenth century. Somehow these tactics - mutual demonization, bans, separation, extreme methods and ideas, willful ignorance of the person and position of the "other" - all have proven to be fruitless in the long run. Reform and secularism has not disappeared from the Jewish scene in spite of the confident predictions of its opponents that it would soon pass from the scene. The religious section of the Jewish people has if anything strengthened itself in the past decades in spite of all of the efforts, governmental, media wise, budgetary and societal pressures, to snuff out the "old Jew." Ben Gurion in the 1940’s stated that there was no reason anymore to openly battle the religious in the nascent state because "just wait one generation and they will all die out by themselves." That observation and prediction has also proven itself to be woefully inaccurate. Yet tactics apparently never change in these cultural struggles. What didn’t work for Orthodoxy in the 1800’s is nevertheless slavishly imitated in 2011. The religious world correctly sanctified goals and perhaps even strategy. Its error lies in sanctifying tactics in the face of the empiric evidence that those tactics do not achieve success. I am told but that a certain great sage and rabbi employed those tactics in 1850, so how can we now deviate from his way? My retort is that I do not know what that sage would say and do if he were alive today in 2011 and knew what the story of the Jewish people over the past 160 years actually was. The Torah is eternal. Tactics once employed in its defense and promulgation is not.
Which brings me to the question of policy. In many areas of Jewish life policy issues have somehow been elevated to the status of being halacha and even basic principles of Jewish faith. Viewpoints on certain issues have become hardened into accusations of heresy and theological error simply because there are those who disagree, and perhaps justifiably so, with those viewpoints. The winning policy in my opinion is to fight less, ignore more and have patience, fortitude and tolerance in dealing with others and with the problems in the Jewish world. Not every issue needs a vitriolic broadsheet to be posted against the wrongdoers. Many times just ignoring the provocation is the best and holiest policy. And I believe that it would also be the wisest and most successful policy. Publicity seeking, media bashing, issuing scattershot statements rarely amounts to healthy policy and certainly is not in keeping with Torah values - "its ways are ways of pleasantness and all of its paths lead to peace." Experience has shown that honey captures more flies than does vinegar. A policy of public restraint would help place Torah and its value system in a more proper light for all Jewry.
Serving Hashem, Mitzvot and Repentance "Of All God's Miracles Large & Small..."
Both Nature & Super-Natural Are Necessary
Rabbis in Midrash
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Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 9 - "Seeing is Believing" (parag. 21-30)
These paragraphs elaborate on the theme that seeing and knowing is better than any attempt to prove logically, and begins explaining the difference between Israel and gentiles.
Ein Aya Various Universal Stages of the Geula Process
Rav Kook examines the various stages of redemption, explaining how (in addition to the obvious oft-mentioned stages of ingathering the exiles, reviving the Hebrew language, army, state etc.) the messianic dream of world prosperity, the State of Israel and world unity can and are realistically and logically gradually coming true.
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 8- "Answering Questions on the Kuzari's Proof from Mass Revelation
How do we know that the "claim" of mass revelation to 2,000,000 witnesses at Mt. Sinai is really true? This important class answers all of the questions skeptics ask about this claim of the Kuzari.
Ein Aya Armies Still Necessary for Balance & the War Against Wars
Rav Kook explains why the world was originally divided into the various seemingly contradicting ideologies and cultures, in order to develop each one respectively. Swords or armies symbolize how each respective ideology defends themselves, as well as deters their opposing ideologies and cultures. On the other hand, the messianic era will be one of peace, and Rav Kook explains the transition to that stage, which mankind is already undergoing.
The Land of Israel LGBT'S IN ISRAEL
The question was asked, how can one make Aliyah with the LGBT parades?
Kuzari -Rabbi Ari Shvat Kuzari class 7 - Five Accumulative Proofs of G-d
As a preparation for the Kuzari's classic proof of G-d from the mass-revelation at Sinai, we start here with 5 other directions to strengthen our belief which also contribute to what the Kuzari will present as well.
Ein Aya Muscle & Meaning: The Dual Nature of Gevurah (Physical Strength)
Is physical strength and fitness a necessity or an ideal? Although it if often totally overlooked among topics of Judaism, Rav Kook writes that it clearly is also a necessity to deter the many enemies of Israel, but even in Y'mot HaMashiach, in the Messianic era, to a certain extent, it's ideal continues even after our enemies will have been finished off.
