Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Vayikra
- Behar
Jewish secularism comes in two different and divergent forms. One is simply that the Torah’s way of life and value system does not harmonize with modern society and its demands. Shabat, kashrut, etc. are all too restrictive to be functional in today’s world. The Jewish people cannot afford to be so different from the rest of the world. The mountain may have had its purpose at one time but that time has now passed. New ideologies and circumstances have rendered it obsolete. So for them the mountain no longer exists. A second group denies the existence of the mountain altogether. There never was a mountain - it is all an urban legend fostered by the rabbis over the ages. In effect, our grandfathers were all liars or naïve believers in legends and stories for which there is no current historical scientific evidence. Aside from these two groupings there are groups who wish to be included in the religion of Judaism and who do not see themselves as being secular. But they in varying degrees follow the ideas of the Saducees and the Karaites though they essentially also deny that the mountain has anything to do with God and divine origins. History shows that in the long run such philosophies and movements give way to the pressures of time and circumstance and eventually lose their influence and power. At the end of the day only the mountain remains as it always has, challenging us to ascend it and maintain ourselves upon it.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
