Sago Boulevard

Moving

2006-01-04T00:21:00.000-05:00

Sago Boulevard has moved! Visit me at my new home.

Demanding Military Benefits For Non-Service

2006-01-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

An Arab couple is petitioning an Israeli court, claiming that the government policy of giving greater mortgage benefits to veterans of the military is discriminatory. (Via David Bernstein)

First, it should be pointed out that the couple, "based on the number of children and siblings they have," is entitled to a NIS 207,000 mortgage by law. Had they served in the military, however, they would receive a mortgage of NIS 255,000. This discrepancy, according to the couple, is discriminatory.

But discriminatory against whom? Arab citizens are permitted to volunteer in the Israeli military, even if not many do. But that is besides the point. Veterans are awarded benefits because of their national service. They give up 3 years of their youth, delay education and career aspirations, and risk their lives. That Israeli Jews are drafted while Israeli Arabs may volunteer doesn't strike me as a relevant difference.

I'd go a step further and argue that even if Arabs were not permitted to serve, it would still not justify this claim. In such a situation, I would be sympathetic to a law suit demanding that the Israeli military allow Arabs to serve, but not one demanding financial benefits as though they had served.

Consider the following analogy. If I am wrongly discriminated against in seeking employment in, say, the NYPD, it's reasonable for me demand accountability and perhaps even compensation. But, when I turn 65, is it reasonable for me to demand that NYPD pay me a pension and award me other benefits on grounds that they discriminated against me? Of course not. The pension is payment for a life of service and only those who serve receive it. Similarly, the benefits Israel affords its veterans should be limited to, well, veterans.

Halakhic Reality

2006-01-02T21:09:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about a distinction between "'al pi din' [according to the law] and 'metzius' [physical reality]" cited and partially endorsed by Godol Hador in a post last week. GH already noted the similarities with Brisker study and R. Soloveitchik's refrain about "halakhic reality".

While flipping through an old issue of The Torah u-Madda Journal, I reread an article by Mark Steiner, "Philosophizing in Yiddish: Rabbi Reuven Agushewitz on Freedom of the Will". In it, he describes how R. Soloveitchik used the techniques of contemporary philosophy in articulating the hashfakah for which he is famous. As scientific discovery continues to wreck havoc in the batei midrash of Orthodox Judaism, I believe we will find ourselves, in one way or another, turning to the Rav for support.

[R. Soloveitchik] puts forward the idea that halakhic Judaism involves intrinsically an alternative description of the world to that of natural science.
...
By reading the works of R. Soloveitchik, one gets an intuitive insight into the meaning of concepts like “freedom” as applied to halakhic man.

At the end of day, we may not need to work out a consistent understanding of Genesis and the natural sciences. The Torah describes creation in our language but from God's perspective. As R. Soloveitchik himself writes:

There is a Bereishit-logic which reflects the wisdom of God embedded in nature.

Philosophy and Dating

2005-12-30T15:09:00.000-05:00

More philosophy humor:

A boy is about to go on his first date, and is nervous about what to talk about. He asks his father for advice. The father replies: "My son, there are three subjects that always work. These are food, family, and philosophy."

The boy picks up his date and they go to a soda fountain. Ice cream sodas in front of them, they stare at each other for a long time, as the boy's nervousness builds. He remembers his father's advice, and chooses the first topic. He asks the girl: "Do you like potato pancakes?" She says "No," and the silence returns.

After a few more uncomfortable minutes, the boy thinks of his father's suggestion and turns to the second item on the list. He asks, "Do you have a brother?" Again, the girl says "No" and there is silence once again.

The boy then plays his last card. He thinks of his father's advice and asks the girl the following question: "If you had a brother, would he like potato pancakes?"

Some Proofs That p

2005-12-30T12:36:00.000-05:00

Philosophy humor from David Chalmers' collection:

Proofs that p:

Putnam:
Some philosophers have argued that not-p, on the grounds that q. It would be an interesting exercise to count all the fallacies in this "argument". (It's really awful, isn't it?) Therefore p.

Rawls:
It would be nice to have a deductive argument that p from self- evident premises. Unfortunately I am unable to provide one. So I will have to rest content with the following intuitive considerations in its support: p.

Unger:
Suppose it were the case that not-p. It would follow from this that someone knows that q. But on my view, no one knows anything whatsoever. Therefore p. (Unger believes that the louder you say this argument, the more persuasive it becomes).

Katz:
I have seventeen arguments for the claim that p, and I know of only four for the claim that not-p. Therefore p.

Lewis:
Most people find the claim that not-p completely obvious and when I assert p they give me an incredulous stare. But the fact that they find not- p obvious is no argument that it is true; and I do not know how to refute an incredulous stare. Therefore, p.

Outline Of A Proof That P (1):
Saul Kripke

Some philosophers have argued that not-p. But none of them seems to me to have made a convincing argument against the intuitive view that this is not the case. Therefore, p.
_________________

(1) This outline was prepared hastily -- at the editor's insistence -- from a taped manuscript of a lecture. Since I was not even given the opportunity to revise the first draft before publication, I cannot be held responsible for any lacunae in the (published version of the) argument, or for any fallacious or garbled inferences resulting from faulty preparation of the typescript. Also, the argument now seems to me to have problems which I did not know when I wrote it, but which I can't discuss here, and which are completely unrelated to any criticisms that have appeared in the literature (or that I have seen in manuscript); all such criticisms misconstrue my argument. It will be noted that the present version of the argument seems to presuppose the (intuitionistically unacceptable) law of double negation. But the argument can easily be reformulated in a way that avoids employing such an inference rule. I hope to expand on these matters further in a separate monograph.

Morganbesser:
If not p, what? q maybe?

Gil on Wikipedia

2005-12-28T12:15:00.000-05:00

King of the Jewish blogosphere, Rabbi Gil Student of Hirhurim, has made it to Wikipedia!

The RCA on Creation, Evolution, and Intelligent Design

2005-12-28T01:35:00.000-05:00

According to the Rabbinical Council of America, (1) evolution isn't heresy and (2) evolution and intelligent design need not stand in opposition. (Hat tip: Hirhurim)

[T]he RCA notes that significant Jewish authorities have maintained that evolutionary theory, properly understood, is not incompatible with belief in a Divine Creator, nor with the first 2 chapters of Genesis.
...
As Rabbi Joseph Hertz wrote, "While the fact of creation has to this day remained the first of the articles of the Jewish creed, there is no uniform and binding belief as to the manner of creation, i.e. as to the process whereby the universe came into existence. The manner of the Divine creative activity is presented in varying forms and under differing metaphors by Prophet, Psalmist and Sage..."
...
[R]ecent Rabbinic leaders who have discussed the topic of creation, such as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch and Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, saw no difficulty in explaining Genesis as a theological text rather than a scientific account.
...
Judaism has always preferred to see science and Torah as two aspects of the "Mind of God" (to borrow Stephen Hawking's phrase) that are ultimately unitary in the reality given to us by the Creator. As the Zohar says (Genesis 134a): "istakel be-'oraita u-vara 'alma," God looked into the Torah and used it as His blueprint for creating the Universe.

Jewish Orthodoxy Quiz

2005-12-23T11:01:00.000-05:00

If you're an Orthodox Jew and believe that we aren't already overly subdivided by ideology and life-syle, Lamed Zayin's quiz offers to pigeon-hole you even further. Here's how I scored. It's actually not too far off.

Left Wing Modern Orthodox: 59%
Right Wing Modern Orthodox: 93%
Left Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi: 54%
Right Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi: 13%

What does it mean?

You're shteiging away in the YU beis medrash and really enjoying that Kant class in the afternoon. You've achieved shiurvanna - the perfect synthesis of frumkeit and the outside world. Everyone to the left is way too modern and everyone to the right is too rigid and machmir. Sometimes you feel guilty about not wearing a hat.

Economics and Capital Punishment

2005-12-23T01:55:00.000-05:00

In light of the recent execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, Richard Posner offers an economic perspective on capital punishment. I have to think about it more before passing judgment but it's worth reading and considering.

As a rule, I think a purely economic approach to such a loaded ethical and political issue will be, at best, insufficient. Posner seems to take for granted that the State may kill those to deserve to die. While this may be true, it is far from obvious. The value of a life is much harder to pin down than he would have us believe.

Reasonableness and Truth

2005-12-21T17:16:00.000-05:00

It's important to distinguish between two concepts that are too often conflated in popular discourse. Confusing reasonableness with truth breeds rhetorical shouting matches where level-headed debate is appropriate and far more useful. Bill Vallicella draws attention to this distinction as it regards an issue particularly prone to this very confusion:

I maintain that atheism is reasonable. Calling a position reasonable, I simply mean that reasons can be adduced in its favor, reasons that are plausible and consistent with what we can claim to know. Of course, I also maintain that theism is reasonable since all sorts of arguments can be given for it, arguments that are valid in point of logical form and that feature premises that are plausible and consistent with what we can claim to know.

Since a position and its contradictory can both be reasonable, but cannot both be true, it follows that truth and reasonableness are distinct properties.

Taking to heart this relatively simple point would go a long way towards improving popular discourse - and probably even scholarly discourse as well.

Rabbis Who Give Torah a Bad Name

2005-12-18T14:27:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Stephen Julius Stein's article in today's LA Times opens with a misleading and irresponsible mention of a few biblical prohibitions.

Did any of us insult our parents? If so, according to the Torah, death by stoning is the decree. Women, did you wear pants last year? If so, according to the Torah, death by stoning is your decree too.

You don't need to be a Reform Jew to realize that these ancient laws are beyond the pale. Among them is the infamous ayin tachat ayin — an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. To modern Western culture, this is simply barbarism.

A rabbi should know better. First, ayin tahat ayin is understood as requiring reparations in the amount of the value of the damage inflicted. There is absolutely no evidence that biblical or rabbinic courts ever did otherwise.

The rabbis make a tremendous effort to avoid capital punishment, making it near impossible for a halakhic court to execute anybody. For Rabbi Stein to flippantly suggest that the Torah would demand stoning in these cases in an article addressed to an audience largely unfamiliar with the nuances of halakhic discourse is disrespectful to the Torah itself and incredibly foolish.

And women being stoned for wearing pants?! Are you kidding? Now of course, if Rabbi Stein cited the appropriate texts, it would be clear how strained of an interpretation this is - even if there are some who may understand it this way. To mention it as he does, without qualification, is simply dishonest.

Meaning and "Pointless Indifference"

2005-12-17T23:39:00.000-05:00

Richard Dawkins in River out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pointless indifference.

In this interview, though, he "thank[s] goodness" for exactly those things which he denies are properties of the universe:

[Darwin] said "What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature." Darwin realized that natural selection produces cruel results. He looked at predators and prey, parasites and hosts, and saw how there is an immense amount of suffering and cruelty out there in nature.
...
We can seek more altruistic, sympathetic, artistic things that have nothing to do with the preservation of our selfish genes - and thank goodness we can.

One way to resolve these two sentiments is to suggest that what makes "altruistic" laudable and "cruelty" undesirable aren't properties of the physical world per se, but rather part of man's effort to create his own meaning in the world.

But how exactly do we create meaning from "pointless indifference" without conceding some version of relativism?

Now, don't throw back at me "well religion doesn't do any better of a job!" That's not the point. It seems clear to me, for entirely logical reasons, that if morality is to have any force, it must be, in a deep sense, built-in to the fabric of the universe.

Natural Creation and Revealed Covenant

2005-12-16T03:38:00.000-05:00

From Rav Soloveitchik's Out of the Whirlwind:

[Man's] position in the world, his existence, his worth and destiny, his duties and prerogatives can all be seen in two perspectives - either in light of the event of creation or in relation to the event of the God-man confrontation. Neither experience must be rejected.
...
Can a complete harmony be achieved? Certainly not, since the natural and the covenantal belong to different and incommensurate orders! They must engender in man conflict and strife... Yet this schism in the personality is indicative not of a sick soul but of a great one that sees God in both the flames of the rising sun and the fire of the Sinai apocalypse.

What's Racism?

2005-12-15T03:11:00.000-05:00

Take the poll.

Another Meme

2005-12-13T17:01:00.000-05:00

Romach has summoned me to "shuffle" all the songs on my playlist and post the top 15.

1. The Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charles Daniels
2. John Barbour - Great Big Sea
3. Turn, Turn, Turn - The Byrds
4. Hard Day's Night - The Beatles
5. Here Come's the Sun - The Beatles
6. The Night Pat Murphy Died - Great Big Sea
7. Hook - Blues Traveler
8. Imagine - John Lennon
9. Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin
10. Beautiful Day - U2
11. Something Beautiful - Great Big Sea
12. Scenes from an Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel
13. Dream On - Aerosmith
14. The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
15. The Rising - Bruce Springsteen

I'm not tagging anybody for this one. If you'd like to list 15 random songs from your playlist, go right ahead.

Ten Random Things

2005-12-11T15:05:00.000-05:00

I've been tagged by Seth. Ten random things about myself:

1. I'm an excellent doodler.
2. I'm very aware that what I like to read and talk about are of little interest to almost everybody else.
3. I have a terrible sense of direction.
4. I wish I were one of those people who has good taste in music but I'm not.
5. I tend to walk in circles around my apartment when I'm deep in thought.
6. I started this blog in part because, while writing my senior thesis, I needed a way to waste time without leaving the library.
7. I'm addicted to caffeine.
8. I've never been to Europe.
9. I don't like salad.
10. After finishing this post, I'm planning on taking a shower.

I tag Romach (yes, I know I still haven't done your meme; I'm getting to it), Jewish Atheist, Orthoprax, and Nephtuli.

Pure Mathematics And Man's Kinship With Nature

2005-12-10T18:57:00.000-05:00

R. Soloveitchik in The Emergence of Ethical Man, p. 61n5:

The epistemological problem that baffled the minds of the greatest philosophers finds its solution in the communion of man with nature. "How is pure mathematics possible?" asked Kant. In other words, how can mathematical principles that were conceived by man in his seclusion from nature (a priori) be applied to the chaotic manifold of reality? Apparently man is equipped with a faculty of divination. Because of his kinship with the cosmos, he reads the inner workings of nature.

Dershowitz vs. Chomsky

2005-12-09T01:17:00.000-05:00

If you have an hour and half to spare and the patience to sit through a lot of bad arguments, here's a link to a debate between Alan Dershowitz and Noam Chomsky on the future of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The debate was last week at Harvard's Kennedy School. To be honest, I was a litle disappointed by the quality of presentations but it's interesting nonetheless. The fact that simple points of fact are disputed sheds light on just how complicated Middle East politics are.

Thanks to Jeremy for the link.

If It Looks Like a Duck

2005-12-07T18:59:00.000-05:00

Antisemitism rears its ugly head, once again, this time in the form of our best friends, the Christian conservatives. From Henry Ford's The International Jew:

Under cover of the ideal of Liberty we have given the Jews liberty to attack Liberty. What America has been tolerating is intolerance itself. Let us look rapidly down the years and see one phase of that attack. It is the attack upon Christianity. Here are a few items from the record. They are recorded over a period of years following the rise of Jewish power in America:

1899-1900. The Jews attempt to have the word "Christian" removed from the Bill of Rights of the State of Virginia.

1906-1907. The Jews of Oklahoma petition the Constitutional Convention protesting that the acknowledgment of Christ in the new State constitution then being formulated would be repugnant to the Constitution of the United States.
...
1907-1908. Widespread demand by the Jews for the complete secularization of the public institutions of this country, as a part of the demand of the Jews for their constitutional rights.

Supreme Court Justice Brewer's statement that this is a Christian country widely controverted by Jewish rabbis and publications.

Jews agitate in many cities against Bible reading. Christmas celebrations or carols in Philadelphia, Cincinnati, St. Paul and New York met with strong Jewish opposition.
...
And so it goes on, year after year, right up to the present day. The incidents quoted are typical not occasional. They represent what is transpiring all the time in the United States as the Jews pursue their "rights." There is no interference with Jewish ways and manners. The Jew may use his own calendar, keep his own days, observe his own form of worship, live in his own ghetto, exist on a dietary principle all his own, slaughter his cattle in a manner which no one who knows about it can approve-he can do all these things without molestation, without the slightest question of his right in them. But, the non-Jew is the "persecuted one." He must do everything the way the Jew wants it done; if not he is infringing on Jewish "rights."

Bill O'Reilly on Neil Cavuto's Show:

I say that Muslims are less than 1 percent of the population, and Jews are less than 3 percent of the population. They're entitled to their opinion, they're entitled to their opinion and they are entitled not to shop in places that say "Merry Christmas," just as I'm entitled not to shop in places that don't. That's what I say. But the bottom line on this is this: Secular progressives which are driving this movement, OK, don't want Christmas. They don't want it as a federal holiday, they don't want any message of spirituality or Judeo-Christian tradition because that stands in the way of gay marriage, legalized drugs, euthanasia, all of the greatest hits on the secular progressive play card.

Philosophy Humor

2005-12-06T18:14:00.000-05:00

Excerpts from The Philosophical Lexicon:

buber, v. To struggle in a morass of one's own making. "After I defined the self as a relation that relates to itself relatingly, I bubered around for three pages." Hence buber, n. one who bubers. "When my mistake was pointed out to me, I felt like a complete buber."

derrida. From a old French nonsense refrain: "Hey nonny derrida, nonny nonny derrida falala."

heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger."

hume, pron. (1) Indefinite personal and relative pronoun, presupposing no referent. Useful esp. in writing solipsistic treatises, sc. "to hume it may concern." v. (2) To commit to the flames, bury, or otherwise destroy a philosophical position, as in "That theory was humed in the 1920s." Hence, exhume, v. to revive a position generally believed to humed.

Light Blogging This Weekend

2005-12-01T22:55:00.000-05:00

I'm taking the LSAT on Monday, so this weekend I'll be busy with some last-minute practice. Blogging will resume next week.

"Matters of the Greatest Importance"

2005-11-28T23:32:00.000-05:00

Bill Vallicella has some important things to say about what things are worth a philosopher's attention and how to recognize them. I would summarize but it's late and you should read the whole post anyway.

Pahad Yitshak On Hanukkah I

2005-11-27T14:21:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned, I'm learning Rav Hutner's Pahad Yitshak on the upcoming holiday of Hanukkah. This is the first of what I hope to be a series of posts devoted to the subject.

Rav Hutner begins by noting that Hanukkah has no scriptural basis and therefore belongs in the category of those aspects of the Oral Torah not fit to be written down. In one sense, this is understandable as the events of Hanukkah have no connection to biblical events. Yet, R. Hutner illustrates a greater significance to this fact.

From a prophesy in Hosea, we see a connection between the actual writing of the Torah and the brit (convenant) between God and Israel. This brit is established on 2 Sivan (R. Hutner derives this from the Gra's explanation of the two birkot haTorah). What's significant here is that the brit precedes the giving of the Torah itself. R. Hutner suggests that the prohibition of writing the Oral Torah is part of this initial brit and thus, precedes the Torah as well. He gives the following explanation for this.

The Oral Torah, once it was committed to writing, lacks an authoritative text (i.e. "hisurei mehsera", "ein seder lamishnah"). We see from here that even when writing is ultimately permitted, the Oral Torah continues to have an oral quality. If the initial prohibition of writing the Oral Torah were a din perati, merely one law among many, we would not be justified in overriding it for the sake of a great communal need. It makes more sense to assume that the prohibition refers to the entity of the of Torah itself, rather than the laws within it.*

This distinction between the generalities of the brit and the laws themselves manifests itself in the din of mesirat nefesh, martyrdom. There is a mitsvah of mesirat nefesh for the three sins of murder, idolatry, and sexual immorality (meaning, one must give up his life rather than transgress). There is an additional mitsvah of mesirat nefesh that applies to all aspects of Torah at a time when Judaism itself is in danger. The first kind of mesirat nefesh is simply a exception to the norm of pikuah nefesh, while the second kind refers to the brit in toto.

It is this second kind of mesirat nefesh that is championed by the Hashmona'im in the story of Hanukkah. Their sacrifice is one prompted by the threat of annihilation and their triumph is a victory for the continuity of the brit itself. The fact that Hanukkah has no mention in Tanakh takes on an added significance. Rather than focusing on one specific aspect of our brit, Hanukkah is about sacrificing ourselves in defending that very brit.

*I don't fully understand R. Hutner's derivation here. I think he is playing off the idea that the Oral Torah was written down in response to a national crisis. This is typically not done for individual laws explicitly in the text. The fact that it was in fact done, indicates that it isn't such a law.

Introducing Category Tags

2005-11-23T00:50:00.000-05:00

As you may notice, I have now category tags at the end of my posts which link to, well, a list of all my posts in that category. This is thanks to two helpful blogs that offer advice on how to use tags and the code to actually do it. As far as updating old posts to fit in the new categories, I will probably only go back to tag the more important ones.

Discussion Post: Israel

2005-11-22T15:57:00.000-05:00

Thoughts on the recent political events in the Holy Land? Predictions?

Making Sense Of Israeli Politics

2005-11-21T23:57:00.000-05:00

I think Americans are spoiled by our relatively easy-to-understand system of government. Following the recent political news from the Holy Land is incredibly confusing. Imagine President Bush leaving the Republican Party. Sounds weird, right? Well, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is forming a new party while somehow staying in power. With Sharon no longer head of the party he helped create, seven people have already announced their candidacy to replace him. Meanwhile, Israel's left-wing Labor Party has a completely new leadership and its former leaders, most notably Shimon Perez, may join Sharon. Confused yet? Shmuel Rosner provides "an abbreviated guide to the perplexed".

"In God We Trust"

2005-11-20T13:23:00.000-05:00

Having failed to ban reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, Michael Newdow is now trying to remove the phrase "In God We Trust" from our currency. Newdow's explanation as to why is, I think, particularly telling.

"The key principle is that we're supposed to treat everybody equally especially in terms of religious belief," Newdow told KWTV in Oklahoma City. "Clearly it's not treating atheists equal with people who believe in God when you say 'In God We Trust' or we are a 'nation under God."

There are at least two issues that we should be careful not to conflate. One is whether or not "In God We Trust" belongs on our currency. The other is whether or not it is constitutionally permitted to have it on our currency. Obviously, if we say that it is indeed unconstitutional, it follows that we should remove it from our currency. But it doesn't work the other way around. Saying that "In God We Trust" doesn't belong on our currency isn't an argument for its unconstitutionality.

Newdow often intersperses his constitutional argument with a public policy one because, frankly, he needs to. Regarding the phrase's constitutionality, Newdow invokes the Establishment Clause. But what religion is the phrase "In God We Trust" endorsing? Is the phrase taken from any sacred scripture or part of a particular religious tradition? As Bill Vallicella correctly notes:

The exceedingly vague phrase "In God We Trust" does not have the power to establish any religion as the state religion... The vague theism/deism suggested by 'God' in the sentence in question... is not a specific religion. And note that the vagueness is very significant. 'God' can and does mean different things to different people. For the pantheistically inclined, God is nature. For some deists, God is nothing but a cosmic starter-upper. Or 'God' might be a way of referring to ethical ideals.

I'll even go a step further. "In God We Trust" need not be about God at all. It may merely express that the United States sees itself as responding to some great calling. Similarly, the phrase "God only knows", when used to express utter cluelessness is hardly an affirmation of an all-knowing divine being.

As to whether or not "In God We Trust" belongs on our pennies as a matter of public policy is a different issue. Despite the vagueness of the phrase, many may still feel excluded on account of their differing beliefs. If that's the case, a bill ought to be proposed to remove it and the Democracy will rule. But it has nothing to do with the Establishment Clause.

Imposing Values

2005-11-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

In a comment to Jewish Atheist's post, Esther writes:

I don't understand why religous fundamentalists feel the need to impose their beliefs on other people.

Eric adds:

I've asked that same question on my blog, and I've yet to hear an explanation that wasn't rooted in a religous tautology. The most frequent answer I've heard to your question is that your 'sin' affects others. The fallacy of this argument is that it's one religon's belief that sin affects others. Deriving laws based on that belief flies in the face of the establishment clause.

This subtle dismissal of religion and religious beliefs is common and I don't mean to pick on either Esther and Eric. It's just the most recent place I've seen this kind of argument. I say, "subtle dismissal" because neither of them say outright that they think religion is garbage and ought not to be taken seriously. Instead, the claim is simply that one should neither "impose" his or her beliefs on others nor "deriv[e] laws based on that belief".

But why not? Every political group, by its nature, seeks to impose its set of values on everybody else. Feminists want to impose the ideal of equality between the sexes on others and support legislation to do so. Environmentalists want the law to prevent others from poluting and legislation to teach about Earth Day in schools. Abolitionists wanted to impose their value that blacks are in fact people. Civil rights activists, a century later, tried to get the law to require everybody to embrace that value.

In suggesting that religious individuals kindly keep their values to themselves, you imply that somehow religion isn't worthy of the consideration we afford other ideologies. Of course, you may in fact think the religion is wrong, harmful, and stupid but it's a step further to suggest that their opinion isn't welcome in public.

Many may respond as Eric did, that "deriving laws based on that belief flies in the face of the establishment clause." This is entirely wrong. We're talking about specific religious positions, not religious institutions. The Constitution protects against the government recognizing religion as having any authoritative power. So arguments along the lines of "well, the Pope said so" don't belong in government. But, "well, the Pope said so and it's a good idea for reasons x, y, and z" is perfectly acceptable. What's unacceptable is, "why can't you religious people just keep your opinions to yourself". And that's what Eirc and Esther mean.

Rav Hutner On Hanukkah

2005-11-19T18:31:00.000-05:00

In light of the upcoming holiday (Dec. 26-Jan. 2), I decided to go through Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner's Pahad Yitshak on Hanukkah. I plan on devoting a series of posts to explaining Rav Hutner's ideas. As I realize that my readers vary in terms of fluency and comfort level with classical Jewish texts, please don't shy from asking questions of clarification in the comments. I'll do my best to be clear.

Weekend Reading

2005-11-18T15:23:00.000-05:00

Krauthammer's column on "intelligent design" pretty much says what I've been thinking. Godol Hador is never quite ready to leave. Mavin Yavin continues to put out some good stuff. Eugene Volokh prompts an important discussion on Holocaust denial.

Shabbat Shalom and have a good weekend.

Right To Privacy

2005-11-16T17:18:00.000-05:00

Dan Savage suggests we give up arguing about whether or not privacy is protected by the Constitution and just stick it in there ourselves. What do you think?

Judaism and Morality

2005-11-16T15:03:00.000-05:00

I want to take up a question brought up by lamedzayin in a post at the newly formed (and high recommended) Maven Yavin. He's asks "Does yahadut [Judaism], if practiced according to the rules, imply morality?" Obviously, this is a very complex issue with far more implications than I could cover in a blog post. That said, I want to suggest what I think is clear from Jewish sources and may thus serve as a starting point.

The closest thing Judaism has to a "definition" or a summary of God, if you will, is the 13 Attributes (Ex. 34:6-7). Hazal and the Rishonim (especially Rambam) understand God's essential qualities as ethical models. With this in mind, consider that Hazal also understand Torah and mitsvot as either a manifestation or reflection of God's will. If God is essentially good, then it is reasonable to conclude that His mitsvot reflect this goodness.

Returning to lamedzayin's question, the answer is that it has too. How exactly this works out is, of course, the subject of centuries of debate. But the basic principle remains. Any imitation of God (which we understand to be a mitsvah) must include an imitation of His attributes of goodness. We are, after all, commanded to imitate He who is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in kindness, and truth".

Military Strategy From Jack Handy

2005-11-15T15:23:00.000-05:00

If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at the enemy, throw one of those small pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think about how stupid war is, and while they are thinking, you can throw a real grenade at them.

Good idea, don't you think? Maybe we should try that in Iraq.

Pointing Out Antisemitism Wherever It Crops Up

2005-11-15T15:06:00.000-05:00

Kudos to Seth Chalmer for, once again, drawing our attention to subtle and often not-so-subtle manifestations of antisemitism. This time in France, of all places. It turns out (anybody surprised?) that there's an antisemitic undertone to the French Muslim riots.

From This Week's New York Magazine

2005-11-13T00:53:00.000-05:00

To the Editor:

I thought I had few illusions about doctors, but I was shocked to read that New York’s practice of publicizing the mortality rates of its heart surgeons has led “surgeons to turn their backs on the sickest patients in order to prop up their personal success records” [“Heartless,” by Robert Kolker, October 24]. Surgeons who put their own professional status above patients’ lives should go into another line of work. Maybe mine: No one is more status-conscious than academic philosophers, but at least philosophers’ obsession with their departments’ national rankings has never killed anyone.

—Felicia Nimue Ackerman, Department of Philosophy, Brown University

"Fossils and Faith"

2005-11-13T00:39:00.000-05:00

I spent a good part of Shabbat reading Nathan Aviezer's Fossils and Faith: Understanding Torah and Science. I had heard good things about Aviezer from my roommate in yeshivah, who actually made an appointment to meet with him. Like Stephen Barr, he doesn't shy away from approaching the hard questions. What I appreciate most about Aviezer's book is his excellent use of analogies in drawing important parallels between Torah and science.

Before you jump on me for supporting Aviezer, let me say that I'm really in no position to discuss the fine points of his argument. Being neither a physicist nor a biologist, I won't claim to fully understand scientific implications of the anthropic principle or quantam mechanics. Read it and decide for yourself.

New Face of Israeli Labor

2005-11-11T13:03:00.000-05:00

Amir Peretz is elected Labor Party Chairmain. Shimon Peres and Old Guard of Israel's Labor Party are finally out of a job. I'm not sure what I think about this yet. I'll save my commentary for a future post.

Halakhah and Originalism

2005-11-10T17:18:00.000-05:00

In light of my previous post, I want to distinguish between what I identified as "God's intention" from the so-called originalist theory of constitutional interpretation. I agree with Nephtuli that there are significant differences but I would go even a step further. The Torah itself is God's message to humanity and thus, interpreting the Torah is inextricably tied to interpreting God's will or intention. Consider an analogy: Somebody writes you a rather vague letter. In trying to make sense of the letter itself, you're also trying to figure out what the author had in mind while writing it. You can't separate those two tasks.

The Constitution, on the other hand, is not simply the will of James Madison or of the members of Constitutional Convention. The relationship of Madison's intention with the text of the Constitution is incidental. The goal of constitutional interpretation is to interpret the Constitution. Madison's intention or that of any of the Founding Fathers is useful only insofar as it helps illuminate the text.

Lo Bashamayim Hi

2005-11-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

The famous story of the oven of achnai (Bava Metsia 59b) is one of the important sources demonstrating the significance and theological implications of halakhic deliberations in Judaism. As Rav Soloveitchik writes:

The strange Aggadic stories... about R. Joshua b. Chanania's rejecting a Divine decision which favored a minority opinion over that of the majority [is] characteristic of the intimate Halakhic-covenantal relationship prevailing between man and God. (The Lonely Man of Faith)

The biblical verse used to justify R. Joshua's rejection of the bat kol is similarly famous: "Lo Bashamayim Hi" - It is not in heaven. The context of the verse is also important, though:

This commandment that I command you today - it is not hidden from you and it is not distant. It is not in heaven [for you] to say "Who can ascend to the heaven for us and take it for us..." Nor is it across the sea, [for you] to say "Who can cross to the other side of the sea for us..." Rather the matter is very near to you. (Deut. 30:11-14)

Richard Silverstein understands this gemara as saying:

The Talmudic rabbis do not view Jewish law as divine per se. It is not fixed in its meaning as revealed at Sinai. It is alive. Jews may even interpret the law wrongly and God has no power to correct them because the sole interpretive responsibility is theirs.

In his comment to Nephtuli's post, he writes:

I do not believe that the rabbis in the Talmud story "ignored" God's "intent." I believe they prob. took that into acct. in their deliberations & decided against Him nevertheless. After all, doesn't God make pretty crystal clear that his original intent sides with R. Eliezer?

I think the suggestion that the rabbis somehow overruled divine authority by invoking "lo bashamayim hi" is seriously misguided. On theological grounds, the rabbis' job is to apply divine law to situations not explicit in the Torah and to make additional provisions to uphold its spirit. The entire corpus of halakhic literature is devoted to identifying and explaining God's intention in giving the Torah.

On texual grounds, that's simply not what the gemara is saying. The reason the bat kol is rejected is clear. The rabbis "give no credence to a bat kol". The heavenly voice is not permitted in the discussion because "lo bashamayim hi". We don't rely on prophetic means to interpret the Torah; we use only our faculties of reason.

But this is an epistemological point. The goal of deciding Halakhah is still to identify God's intention. The rabbis don't ignore God's will; they ignore the bat kol because they are called upon to identify God's will on their own. If we rely on a bat kol, then we indeed require someone to "ascend to the heaven for us". The Torah tells us that no, "lo bashamayim hi" - it is not in heaven. The bat kol has no weight in the halakhic discussion. We have to figure out what God would say on our own.

Feeling Patriotic

2005-11-08T12:36:00.000-05:00

I voted this morning. Hopefully you did too.

A Journalistic Bias On The Left

2005-11-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

Yet another columnist laments the left wing bias in the media. The Monitor's Matthew Towery argues:

By looking through an elite pair of myopically focused glasses, these media movers deceive themselves that everything revolves around their own business and social circles in New York City and Washington, D.C.

Citing two of Bernard Goldberg's books, "Bias" and "Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite", Towery's suggests

moving some of the major national news broadcasts to new locations outside New York. How about the evening news from Topeka, Kan.; Dallas; or Jacksonville, Fla.? According to Goldberg, that would force talking-head superstars to interact with mainstream Americans. And why not the same prescription for Hollywood and Wall Street kingpins?

So many of these half-baked theories about media bias miss what strikes me as an obvious point. Maybe it's not so much that journalists have a liberal bias as it is liberals have a propensity for journalism. Journalism is the profession of whistle-blowers, a medium for challenging authority and advocating change. It's the kind of thing liberals drool over. The problem isn't that media outlets are based in New York instead of Topeka. It's that North Eastern Liberal types are the ones who want to be journalists. I think the same is true for liberal biases in Hollywood and sociology departments.

Think of it this way. Would anybody be surprised if I told you there's a conservative bias in the military, a libertarian bias on Wall Street, and a socialist bias among factory workers?

Trail Markers And Design

2005-11-03T21:11:00.000-05:00

I stumbled upon this post by William Vallicella while browsing around his archives. I have to think about it a little more carefully before passing judgment, though it's certainly a very interesting argument. What do you, my dear readers, think?

Alito Nomination Spurs Much Needed Debate

2005-11-03T12:08:00.000-05:00

Obviously, George Will supports Alito. But whether or not you agree with him on the nomination, what he says about the implications of the upcoming debate is well taken.

The nation has long needed a serious debate about the proper nature of that [judicial] supervision. And the president needed both a chance to demonstrate his seriousness and an occasion to challenge his Democratic critics to demonstrate theirs in a momentous battle on terrain of his choosing. The Alito nomination begins that debate.

It should be noted, first of all, that Bush nominating a conservative, anti-Roe judge was to be expected. He campaigned on nominating a justice in the model of Scalia and Thomas. You could argue about secrecy surrounding many White House policies but Bush's judicial ideology was out in the open the whole time.

More importantly, Will correctly notes that the country needs a debate about the Constitution: what it means and how it's to be interpreted. It will divide, not unite, the country because serious debates like this one have serious and far-reaching consequences. But it's one we desperately need to have.

Discussion Post: Alito

2005-11-01T15:12:00.000-05:00

What do you think of Judge Alito?

"Retelling The Story of Science"

2005-11-01T12:33:00.000-05:00

About a month ago, Godol Hador directed me to this article by Stephen Barr on the so-called conflict between religion and science. I printed it out with the intention of reading it eventually. In part because of a conversation I had over the weekend, I finally sat down to read it. It's really an excellent article and it gets at some of the difficult yet important issues that many writers on the subject avoid. It also doesn't overstate its point. Barr knows what he can prove, what he can disprove, and what he can merely suggest. What he suggests is this:

After all the twists and turns of scientific history we look around and find ourselves in very familiar surroundings. We find ourselves in a universe that seems to have had a beginning. We find it governed by laws that have a grandeur and sublimity that bespeak design. We find many indications in those laws that we were built in from the beginning. We find that physical determinism is wrong. And we find that the deepest discoveries of modern physics and mathematics give hints, if not proof, that the mind of man has something about it that lies beyond the power of either physics or mathematics to describe.

Brandeis News

2005-11-01T12:10:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite columnists, Tom Friedman (whom I don't as often since NYTimes.com became subscription) is teaching a course next year at Brandeis. I know I graduated already - but it's still exciting.

Sui Genocide

2005-10-31T23:45:00.000-05:00

I don't even know where to start on this one. Just too weird. Any thoughts?

Bush Nominates Alito

2005-10-31T09:22:00.000-05:00

CNN.com reports:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said Monday he has nominated 3rd Circuit Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito for the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
...
Alito, a former U.S. attorney who has been a judge for 15 years, is considered a favorite of the conservative movement and is Bush's third pick for O'Connor's seat.

It looks like this nominee will bring the political battle many conservatives have been hoping for. Harry Reid doesn't appear to be too happy about it:

[T]he choice of Alito "would create a lot of problems."

"That is not one of the names that I've suggested to the president," he said. "In fact, I've done the opposite."

I'll post my thoughts on Alito after I have a chance to do some reading. In the meantime, The Volokh Conspiracy already has some interested commentary.

Ushpizin

2005-10-27T13:24:00.000-04:00

I saw Ushpizin last night with my parents. The three of us agree that it was very good. While the story itself is very interesting, what's more important is how the film opened a window into Jerusalem's haredi community. It was both respectful and highly accurate - both commendable accomplishments when making a film about Orthodox Judaism.

Possibly Big News

2005-10-22T23:26:00.000-04:00

At least an indication that the White House just might be regretting the Miers nomination:

The White House has begun making contingency plans for the withdrawal of Harriet Miers as President Bush's choice to fill a seat on the Supreme Court, conservative sources said yesterday.

"White House senior staff are starting to ask outside people, saying, 'We're not discussing pulling out her nomination, but if we were to, do you have any advice as to how we should do it?' " a conservative Republican with ties to the White House told The Washington Times yesterday.

The White House denied making such calls.
...
"The political people in the White House are very worried about how she will do in the hearings," the second conservative leader said. "I think they have finally awakened."

This is obviously far from conclusive and possibly even a conspiracy theory. But it's something to hope for.

(via Orin Kerr)

Discussion Post

2005-10-22T20:17:00.000-04:00

I'm trying something new. I want to get a better idea of what my readers are interested in and encourage more discussion. The comments section is hereby open for anything you have to say. Tell us what's on your mind.

A Post On Miers

2005-10-21T13:42:00.000-04:00

I was going to post my thoughts on the Miers nomination, but instead I'll let Krauthammer speak for me:

It's no secret that I think the Harriet Miers nomination was a mistake.
...
The president's mistake was thinking he could sneak a reliable conservative past the liberal litmus tests (on abortion, above all) by nominating a candidate at once exceptionally obscure and exceptionally well known to him.

The problem is that this strategy blew up in his face. Her obscurity is the result of her lack of constitutional history, which, in turn, robs her of the minimum qualifications for service on the Supreme Court. And while, post-Robert Bork, stealth seems to be the most precious asset a conservative Supreme Court nominee can have, how stealthy is a candidate who has come out publicly for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion?
...
Conservatives such as Sen. Sam Brownback... will try to establish some grounds to believe that (a) she has a judicial philosophy and (b) it is conservative.

And then there will be the Democrats who, in their first act of political wisdom in this millennium, have held their fire on Miers, under the political axiom that when your opponent is committing suicide, you get out of the way. But now that Miers is so exposed on abortion, the Democrats will be poised like a reserve cavalry to come over the hills to attack her from the left -- assuming she has survived the attack from the right.

The omens are not good.

Miers isn't getting through the Senate, nor should she. We could speculate about what Bush was thinking until we're blue in the face but it's probably more productive to start thinking about Bush's next pick.

Gallagher On Gay Marriage

2005-10-21T12:25:00.000-04:00

Maggie Gallagher has been guest-posting on The Volokh Conspiracy this past week. None of her arguments are particular suprising or enlightening. And I don't think they would convince any gay-marriage-supporter. That said, Gallagher is one of the more articulate conservatives againat gay marriage and her posts are a good place to start if you're interested in the debate. Her basic argument is, I think, best summed up by Orin Kerr:

...extending marriage to include same-sex couples would not just give rights to a small subset of the population, but would radically transform what marriage is. So long as only opposite-sex couples can marry... marriage is linked to procreation; if same-sex couples can marry, too, then marriage is transformed into something else entirely. Adding same-sex marriage would ruin the old institution and create a new one, and the new institution would not longer retain a focus on having and raising children. Viewed in that light, same sex marriage is a threat to society: by redefining the institution, it will kill off its most important feature.

I'm with many of the commentators on her posts that the argument isn't persuasive but read through it and decide for yourself.

Pakistan Accepts Jewish Money

2005-10-20T12:15:00.000-04:00

After previously refusing aid from Israel and American Jewish groups for earthquake relief, Musharraf is now willing to accept funds. I'm convinced that you have to be pretty committed to hating Jews to refuse aid in this kind of situation.

Introduction to Utilitarianism

2005-10-16T14:26:00.000-04:00

Lawrence Solum at Legal Theory Blog gives a overview of utilitarianism, specifically as it relates to law. Summarizing complicated and controversial philosophical positions is incredibly difficult, especially while trying to be objective. Of course, there's what to quibble with in the details but it's as good as introductions get.

They're Voting

2005-10-16T02:20:00.000-04:00

Regardless of your politics and view of the Iraq War, the fact of even something resembling an election is a huge success. According to CNN.com, about 15.5 million of Iraq's 26 million people were registered to vote.

"The success in this referendum, it isn't how many people are going to say 'yes' and how many people are going to say 'no,'" said Fareed Ayar, a spokesman for Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission. "The success is that all Iraqis ... found out that the polling station is the way to deal with the political problems in Iraq, to deal with the violence in Iraq."

Still Too Soon

2005-10-12T02:24:00.000-04:00

Can't you at least wait 'till baseball's over before suggesting 10 ways to fix the Yankees and make them World Series champions again? I'm not done mourning yet.

Journalists Are My Eyes and Ears

2005-10-11T14:48:00.000-04:00

Lindsay's post (featured in Philosophers' Carnival XX) on journalism and objectivity is quite sensible. In particular, she correctly points out what the consumer of news should want from journalists.

We want reporters to be our eyes and ears. If we can't witness an event first hand, we want someone to document it with as little distortion as possible so that we can consume the information and make up our own minds as if we had been able to see for ourselves.

Later in the post, though, she grants journalists a bit more interpretive licence than I feel comfortable with.

A science reporter who knows perfectly well that Intelligent Design is bunk but who still gives equal time to the ID crowd is not reporting objectively. Instead of writing to convey the truth as he understands it, he's writing to conform to an arbitrary standard of balance measured in column inches.

I don't want to get into the ID debate - I've already posted about that a couple times (here and here). But if ID is indeed bunk, shouldn't it be the consumer who makes that call? For one thing, if you grant the reporter licence to call ID bunk, then you ipso facto grant an ID supporter the right to do the same about Darwinism. Whether or not you believe that there's a real scientific debate about this (which there probably isn't), there is certainly a political debate and that alone is reason for a reporter to let me decide what to believe. As Lindsay said, I want journalists to be my eyes and ears, not my faculties of reason.

Of course, the ID debate is just one example and there are plenty of cases where forcing journalists to report on "both sides" would indeed be ridiculous. But in some cases, even when there isn't a scientific debate - global warming is another example - the political one is real enough.

Hopefully, I'll get around to commenting on some other Carnival posts later today.

Some Bad Arguments Against War In Iraq

2005-10-07T17:16:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted about the Iraq war mostly because I have mixed feelings. As much as I love debating, something changes for me when the issue at hand involves the lives thousands of soldiers and civilians. Almost all cases of self-defense or perceived self-defense are incredibly complicated, both ethically and politically. That said, I supported invading Iraq, overthrowing Saddam, and establishing democracy there - despite serious doubts that we could have done (and still can do) a better job.

But while I'm timid about making the case for war, I'm never shy about pointing out bad arguments and the current anti-war movement is full of them. The most common criticism goes something like this: "Bush justified this war on the basis of Saddam having WMD. As it turns out, no such weapons were found and likely never existed. Since Bush's primary stated reason for going to war doesn't apply, the war is unjustified."

First of all, as Russel Roberts points out, Bush didn't make up the idea of WMD. Saddam somehow managed to convince the whole world that he either had or was building weapons. Even the countries that most strongly opposed the American-led invasion didn't deny that he had them. Secondly, arguing that Bush justified this war on the basis of Saddam having WMD is misleading. He justified the war on the basis of having sufficient reason to believe that Saddam had WMD. According to the facts available to Bush, Blair, and other world leaders, it was the reasonable conclusion to draw. And faced with the possibility of a nuclear or chemical attack, it was reasonable to take military action based on that conclusion. None of this changes in light of the new information that in fact, no such weapons exist.

An analogy from poker: You're holding kings and the flop turns up another one. The guy across from you raises all-in. You call and he draws a flush. You lose. So you must have made the wrong move - should've folded, right? No, of course not. Given the information available, knowing neither what the other guy is holding nor the next two cards in the deck, that's the right decision. Foreign policy is necessarily based on limited information and the best action is one that will yield the desired result based on that limited information.

You could argue that the condition itself is insufficient for going to war. That is to say, if faced with the threat of attack by a homicidal maniac dictator who's used chemical weapons on his own people and, according to available intelligence, is prepared to launch a nuclear or biological attack, invasion is still not justified. But my point remains. The fact that no weapons were found has no bearing on the justifiability of the war.

Among the other reasons given for opposing the war is that it makes the US hated around the world. Of course, those who depend on Saddam staying in power will hate us, as well as those whose interests are hurt by an increase in US influence. More importantly, though, we have no reliable way of knowing what feelings Joe-average Iraqi will have about the US when all is said and done. To quote Roberts again:

A lot of times, people are glad when the US army shows up. They're glad in New Orleans. They were glad in Paris in 1945. Are they glad in Baghdad? I have no idea. Let me say that again. I have no idea. And neither does anyone else who lives here and watches the nightly news and reads the papers. There just isn't enough information.

I think there is a case to be made for the war, particularly on human-rights grounds. But I'll leave that for another post.

Warning: Religion May Be Dangerous

2005-10-06T10:00:00.000-04:00

So concludes a survey published in the latest Journal of Religion and Society:

The study, by evolutionary scientist Gregory S. Paul, looks at the correlation between levels of "popular religiosity" and various "quantifiable societal health" indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States.
...
He found that the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. — which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) — also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

As you can probably guess, the logic here isn't exactly ironclad. Particularly telling is Paul's already-skewed version of religion from the outset:

Paul ranked societies based on the percentage of their population expressing absolute belief in God, the frequency of prayer reported by their citizens and their frequency of attendance at religious services.

Notice how none of the criteria for what qualifies as "religious society" has anything to do with morality. But, as everyone knows, all major Western religions (probably all world religions but I can only talk about what I know) stress giving charity, helping the less fortunate, honoring parents, and respecting fellow human beings. If those were added to the criteria, I suspect the results would look a quite different. What Paul may conclude, if he wasn't already bent on religion-bashing, is that mere ritual observance and proclamations of faith don't correlate with such "quantifiable societal health indicators" - but that's nothing new. The Prophets of the Bible condemn ritual observance that isn't accompanied by ethical behavior over and over again.

Rosa Brooks, the article's author, predicts "that right-wing evangelicals will do their best to discredit Paul's substantive findings." Or maybe they'll just point to the Bible and say "yeah, we already knew that."

(via Jill)

Rosh Hashanah

2005-10-03T17:41:00.000-04:00

I wish you a happy and sweet new year. May you be inscribed and sealed in the book of life. Blogging will resume after Rosh Hashanah.

The Self-Defeating Relative Value System

2005-09-28T12:49:00.000-04:00

Although the argument has been made countless times before, it's useful to review every once in a while. Maverick Philosopher nails it on the head.

Blankey: Destroy Western Civilization Before Arabs Do

2005-09-27T16:04:00.000-04:00

Rebecca Hagelin quotes Washington Times' editor Tony Blankley:

"It is increasingly likely that such a threat cannot be defeated while the West continues to adhere to its deeply held values -- as it currently understands them -- of tolerance, the right to privacy, the right even to advocate sedition and the right to equal protection under the law," Blankley writes. "The day is upon us when the West will have to decide which it values more: granting these rights and tolerance to those who wish to destroy us, or the survival of Western civilization."

Translation: Let's not give those Arab Islamo-fascist terroists the chance to end our great way of life. Let's do it ourselves.

(via Jill)

Ethnicity, Gender, and Supreme Court Nominations

2005-09-25T13:28:00.000-04:00

There's a clear value to a diversified Supreme Court (and any major public institution for that matter). Truth be told, I like the fact that two Jews sit on the Court. It serves as a public demonstration of the Jewish contribution to American government. I feel no shame in being proud of that and there's no reason to believe that anybody should feel differently about seeing own of their own (be it by gender, race, or religion) appointed to such a prestigious office.

But it's a dangerous precedent. As I mentioned in a comment to Lauren's post, really good candidates - the kind of jurists who, by the sheer strength of their pen, will move American jurisprudence in the direction it needs to go - will fall through the cracks because they don’t fit the gender, race, or religion requirements. On this point, the politics surrounding Bush's next nominee don't look promising. Washington Post reports:

With Bush poised to make another nomination as soon as this week, he is hearing growing demands to name a woman or minority to the vacancy created by the pending retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican political and legal strategists said.

Laura Bush twice has said that she would like to see a woman succeed O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court. A number of Latino group officials have publicly urged the president to name the first Hispanic to the high court.

Choosing a justice by any criteria other than judicial ideology and sharpness of mind will hurt the Court in the long run. We needs the country's best jurists not our most congenial ones to shape the law. It's important to remember that when Justice Brandeis is cited, it isn't as the first Jewish Justice, but as a phenomenal jurist. I suppose that when Justice O'Connor is cited by the Court 50 years from now, it'll be her ideology that matters, not her gender.

"Interfaith Coalition Unveils Public School Bible Course"

2005-09-23T17:07:00.000-04:00

I'm actually optimistic about this. I realize that even the most well-meaning and neutral-sounding Bible curriculum can be distorted by a teacher bent on hammering a singular ideology into his students' heads. But, first of all, the same can be said for any subject. More importantly, though, any good general education - religious or secular - warrants some familiarity with the most important work of the Western Canon. Too much of understanding the world around us depends on it.

Christians And "People of Faith"

2005-09-22T13:23:00.000-04:00

Diane Glass and Shaunti Feldhahn debate "Should aid be allowed to promote religious messages during disaster relief?" Feldhahn gives the standard Christian line: In a disaster situation, people need both material and spiritual aid. Most people of faith are responding out of "a heart of love and compassion for those who are hurting," not merely to "push religion". I'm willing to grant that for the majority of missionary groups, what Feldhahn says is true. I don't think every priest or minister who goes to New Orleans is only trying to attract converts. I believe many of them, being genuinely religious people, really do want to help in whatever way they can. Having said that, Glass, in her rebuttal, makes an incredibly important point:

Shaunti deflects who is really responsible because what we’re talking about are Christian aid relief organizations, not all “religious-based” groups.

When Feldhahn says "people of faith" what she means is "Christian". I'm fully sympathetic to the claim that confining religion to inside the home and places of worship is a slap in the face to anybody who takes God seriously. As far as that goes, I'm happy to see Christian missionary groups bring their religious convictions to the disaster-stricken New Orleans. They certainly have a right to. But the rhetoric of "faith-based" or "religion-based" aid groups is highly misleading. Call a spade a spade. We're talking about Christian missionary groups whose ideology includes spreading the Gospel. You have a right to missionize - it's protected by the First Amendment. Just stop lying about it.

"A Painful Absence of Balance"

2005-09-21T16:38:00.000-04:00

I posted last week on the proposal in England "to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims." What could possibly be offensive about such a memorial, you ask? Alan Dershowitz explains:

The double bigotry reflected in this proposal should be evident to all people of good will. First, I can understand why commemoration of the Holocaust should be offensive to those Muslims and others who supported Nazi victory over Britain and Nazi genocide against the Jews and others.

And there were many such Muslims, led by the leader then of the Palestinian people Haj Amin al-Husseini, who urged Hitler to extend the final solution beyond Europe’s borders to Jewish refugees who had reached Palestine.

But wait - anti-Zionism doesn't equal antisemitism, does it? It does in this case, when Israeli injustices are taken way out of proportion to the point of being compared to Nazism. Despite the many Palestinian civilians killed in the Intifada, the number is pale in comparison to the number of Palestinians and Arabs killed by Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Iran during the same period. So when Israel is singled out as a perpetrator of genocide, I'm pretty sure antisemitism is lurking somewhere in the background. It's as simple as this:

The Israeli occupation is not a genocide, and those who would conflate the two are more interested in demonising the Jewish state than in achieving Palestinian statehood and a just peace, based on compromise, between the two nations.

(via Shragie)

May His Memory Be For Blessing

2005-09-20T15:40:00.000-04:00

Nazi Hunter Simon Wiesenthal Dies at 96

Simon Wiesenthal, 96, the controversial Nazi hunter who pursued hundreds of war criminals after World War II and was central to preserving the memory of the Holocaust for more than half a century, died early today at his home in Vienna, Austria. He had a kidney ailment.

Called the "deputy for the dead" and "avenging archangel" of the Holocaust, Wiesenthal after the war created a repository of concentration camp testimonials and dossiers on Nazis at his Jewish Documentation Center. The information was used to help lawyers prosecute those responsible for some of the 20th century's most abominable crimes.

Wiesenthal spoke of the horrors first-hand, having spent the war hovering near death in a series of labor and extermination camps. Nearly 90 members of his family perished.

After the Nuremberg Trials of the late 1940s, Wiesenthal remained a persistent and lonely voice calling for war crimes trials of former Nazis.

Philosopher's Carnival XIX

2005-09-19T21:03:00.000-04:00

Visit the most recent Philosophers' Carnival.

"Evolution Meets Judaism"

2005-09-15T15:32:00.000-04:00

A brief discussion of the Jewish approach to advances in evolution theory and science in general, à la Rabbi Natan Slifkin.

(via Sefer ha-Hayim Blog)

Is Prager a Jewish Thinker?

2005-09-14T18:38:00.000-04:00

Or just a conservative one who tacks on the annoying phrase "Judeo-Christian" to give himself credibility? I've already ranted about how much I hate the phrase "Judeo-Christian" so I'll let you read it for yourself. Aside from that, though, I'm genuinely curiously: Is there a particular Jewish constituency that believes Prager to be speaking for them? I certainly don't see the left-leaning Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist groups singing his praises. As a conservative, he may appeal to some Orthodox Jews (although not me) but can hardly be compared to the heavy-weights of the Orthodox world in yeshivot and universities. Anybody familiar with rabbinic writing from any time period should notice this immediately: Prager doesn't cite sources. Just search Prager's articles for words like "talmud," "midrash," "halakhah," "rambam," "mitsvah".

If you want to argue that your position represents a normative (or even minority) Jewish view, don't you think you should provide at least one or two sources? Instead, Prager just says "Judeo-Christian" and then tells you what he thinks, as if the two have anything to do with each other.

"Poor" in biblical nomenclature were truly destitute, not at all analogous to those classified as "poor" in America. (source)

A verse? A mishnah? Just give me something that indicates that "poor" is absolute rather than relative. Because the poor in the Bible didn't have indoor plumbing either. I guess that makes us all filthy rich.

The biblical view is that man and woman are entirely distinct beings, and human order in large part rests on preserving that distinctiveness. (source)

Oh, so that's why the Torah tell us that God created Woman from Man's "side" (or "rib"). It's because men and women are "entirely distinct". Thank you, Rabbi Prager, for enlightening me. I think this is the kicker, though:

Jews opposed to capital punishment cite the Talmud (the second most important religious text to Jews), which is largely opposed to capital punishment... Yet, the notion that a murderer must give up his life is one of the central values in the Old Testament. Indeed, taking the life of a murderer is the only law that is found in all Five Books of Moses. (source)

So the rabbis, the most significant and authoritative interpreters of the Bible, oppose capital punishment. Prager admits this much. But, he argues, the rabbis must have glossed over all those biblical passages that seem to support it. How silly of the rabbis.

Holocaust Memorial Day is Offensive to Muslims

2005-09-12T21:02:00.000-04:00

I'm fuming over this:

Advisors appointed by Tony Blair after the London bombings are proposing to scrap the Jewish Holocaust Memorial Day because it is regarded as offensive to Muslims.
...
A member of one of the committees, made up of Muslims, said it gave the impression that "western lives have more value than non-western lives". That perception needed to be changed. “One way of doing that is if the government were to sponsor a national Genocide Memorial Day.

"The very name Holocaust Memorial Day sounds too exclusive to many young Muslims..."

I think Seth put it well:

The opponents of Holocaust Day wish it to be replaced by a "Genocide Day" that would also remember dead Palestinians. Because no Jewish suffering is to be recognized without implying that Jews are mass murderers who deserve it.

We'll Miss You

2005-09-12T20:12:00.000-04:00

Two-time MVP and second only to Gretzky on the all-time scoring list, New York Ranger's Captain Mark Messier retires.

Anybody Else Feeling Less Optimistic About the Gaza Pull-out?

2005-09-12T19:46:00.000-04:00

Some Palestinians have learned an important lesson from the Gaza pull-out.

The lesson I've learned, and I will pass it on to my sons, is that no matter how long it takes, the occupiers will leave because of resistance.

Translation: If we keep blowing up buses in major Israeli cities and kill lots of innocent people, we'll get what we want. Sounds a bit like a kid having a temper tantrum, but with bombs.

Other Palestinians are more tempered with their enthusiasm:

He was happy today, Mr. Kurd said, but his happiness was also tempered "because of the continuing occupation of Jenin and Nablus and Jerusalem, which are also part of Palestine," he said. And until Israel resolved the question of how to allow Palestinians and their goods to enter and exit freely from Gaza, to Egypt and to the West Bank, he said, "Israel remains an occupier," a position supported by the Palestinian Authority.

"If there is no freedom of movement, don't consider the Palestinians free," Mr. Kurdi said. "We will not accept Gaza as a big prison."

So Israel now has to open its borders to an openly hostile population and surrender its capital city? And then, of course, they'll love us, right? Or as this slogan written on the wall of an abandoned synagogue says: "Yes for freedom! No for Jews! Hamas."

The celebrations were also orchestrated in part by the rival factions within Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Fatah, the mainspring of the Palestinian Authority. Their flags of black, green and yellow were more numerous than the Palestinian flag, and were prominent on abandoned Israeli military outposts and public buildings.

Well, who would've guess that! The terrorist groups are more popular now. To quote Elie Weisel, "I will perhaps be told that when the Palestinians cried at the loss of their homes, few Israelis were moved. That's possible. But how many Israelis rejoiced?" When Israel won the '48 war, how many Israelis tempered their enthusiasm, proclaiming: "We will not rest until all of Jerusalem, Hebron, and Bethlehem is restored to Jewish hands"? And despite not being allowed to the holy sites of Jerusalem until '67, how many blew up Palestinian school buses to get them back? The contrast is just unbelievable. Why these groups continue to pledge more violence immediately following a major concession for peace is beyond me. But what really gets to me is how a people that claim to want peace continue to hold them up as heros.

Intuition, Experience, and Theism

2005-09-09T00:08:00.000-04:00

Last week, Godol Hador wrote about the role of intuition in justifying theistic arguments. I responded:

In daily life, we don't demand logical certainly. We believe certain things, and act accordingly, based on a combination of logic, observation, and intuition. For example, I just sat down on a chair. I assumed, justifiably, that the chair was secure enough to hold my weight. Although I would openly admit that from a purely logical perspective I had no good reason to believe that the chair would support, I maintain it was a perfectly reasonable assumption. It is unfair (and intellectually dishonest) to demand a higher level of evidence than the one we rely on so casually everyday.

Now the question is this: is the claim of God's existence so extraordinary that it indeed requires greater evidence than other claims? Orthoprax claims (in the comments to GH's post and on his blog) that "extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence":

You see chairs every day. You sit in them all the time. They almost always support you. It doesn't conflict with anything you regularly know about the world to assume this one will support you as well. It looks like it will and that's all the ordinary evidence you need for such an ordinary belief. For claims that we know are possible, you need less evidence because all you need to prove is that it happened at a certain time and place. Claim: "There's an asian elephant in the Bronx Zoo." Very possible, very believable. Show me a recent advertisement of that and I have no real reason to doubt it.
...
And then still there are other claims which we don't think are possible, but hey, you never know. Claim: "The mansion down the block is haunted." Wow, haunted, that's incredible. I've never even seen a ghost or seen any reliable documentation of ghost sightings ever. Are ghosts even real? For this one claim, they claimant not only needs to prove that it is possible but that it did indeed happen.
...
The claim of God fits somewhere along the lines of the haunted mansion claim and is far removed from "this chair will support my weight" claim.

Let's say I grant Orthoprax's point that I need "extraordinary evidence" to support the claim of God. I think I have it. I've never encountered a haunted house and don't personally know anybody who has. But three times day I pour my heart out to God, I address Him before and after eating meals, when I lay down at night and when I arise in the morning. Furthermore, I have available to me a tradition that tells me in great detail how to approach Him, how to learn from Him. My teachers, whom I trust, reinforce this by pointing out nuances and insights in the texts of the rabbis.

For somebody who has that primal experience on a regular basis, God is very familiar. As R. Soloveitchik asks (paraphrasing Kierkegaard), "Does the loving bride in the embrace of her beloved ask for proof that he is alive and real? Must the prayerful soul clinging in passionate love and ecstasy to her Beloved demonstrate that He exists?"

Orthoprax responded:

Have you seen God? Spoken to him (meaning that he actually returned a response)? Has anyone shared your experiences with you? Have you sensed him in any way but the emotional? If not, then how can you know that you've actually experienced something real and external to yourself?

I suppose the same way I know that I ever experience something "real and external" to myself. But I think something else is going on here in his argument. By demanding empirical or repeatable evidence, he disregards a major theological claim out of hand. The fundamental experience that a religious person has with God is a real one. I have just as much cause to trust it as I do any other experience, if not more.

Not News

2005-09-06T20:12:00.000-04:00

I wonder how the media would react if hundreds Jewish Israeli attacked a Muslim village, torching houses and vehicles. My guess is that it would be front-page news. But I didn't see anything on the homepages of news websites about 500 Muslim Palestinians ransacking a Christian Palestinian village. The attack was triggered by the murder of a 30-year-old Muslim woman, who was killed by members of her own family for "having had a romance with a Christian man".

Is this just an example of the Man Bites Dog rule of journalism? Maybe Palestinians kill each other so often that it's just not news anymore. Or is it possible that the media singles out Israel for scrutiny for isolated incidents while failing to show how good Israel looks when compared to her neighbors?

(via Seth Chalmer)

"Sick Minds Use Katrina to Justify Hatred"

2005-09-06T17:38:00.000-04:00

But as Leonard Pitts writes, "Does it really matter?" Of course it's important to look back at the events leading up to and immediately following the hurricane. It's important to figure out what could have been prevented and what mistakes were made. And it's important not to overlook that fact that many of those hit hardest by Katrina were black and poor. But can't all this wait until everyone at least has something to eat and drink?

The city is flooded, people are homeless and hungry and scared and dead. Shouldn't this be a time for giving money and saying prayers? Should we really care about the color of the people looting in the hurricane zone? Or that Louisiana is a red state? Or that some of the dead are gay?
...
Death toll rising like floodwaters, probably heading into the thousands, corpses floating down the street, and some liberal twit is joking--God, I hope he was joking--that the blue states should let the red one suffer? People clinging to rooftops, a great city turned into a steaming, stinking primordial swamp, and some alleged Christians think it's a victory for heterosexuality?

How can you be concerned about the skin color or the bank accout or the sexual preference of anybody when thounsands are already dead and the death toll is rising rapidly. A police officer commited suicide, apparently after losing hope of ever restoring order in New Orleans. E. Coli bateria has just been detected in the floodwater. How about we talk about race, homosexuality, and politics another time.

Note New Address

2005-09-06T03:03:00.000-04:00

Same blog, new address.

A Liberal Hoping for Judicial Restraint

2005-09-04T20:26:00.000-04:00

What kind of conservative is John Roberts? That's the question on the minds of Senate leaders anticipating the confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court nominee. Kurt Andersen, a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, argues that liberals should be hoping for genuine judicial restraint from Roberts. In the '60s and '70s, Andersen writes, liberal jurists set a dangerous precedent by their activism that has come back to haunt them. The merits of judicial restraint, of checks and balances are often most profoundly understood once power has changed hands. He offers an insightful analysis of the jurisprudential consequences of the liberal courts of the previous generation. I recommend reading the wrote article. Some highlights:

Now that the era of activist liberal judicial hegemony is over, we liberals have to hope that Roberts and Bush’s other appointees really are devoted to judicial restraint—the way liberals were not, back in the day. It’s chastening to see the right, now ascendant, behaving in ways our side used to behave. So many shoes are on the other foot. I grew up understanding the filibuster as a last-ditch means for segregationists to veto civil-rights legislation; now liberals cling to it as a last-ditch means to veto judges antagonistic to civil rights. “States’ rights” was cynical code for southern segregationism, yet now we beleaguered liberals sincerely insist on any state’s right to legalize physician-assisted suicide, gay marriage, medical marijuana—and, if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, abortion.
...
As far as jurisprudence goes, however, it turns out that consistency and adherence to precedent are the things that protect us from being tyrannized by our opponents when they’re in power. Maybe Roberts is still more of a Daniel Webster pragmatist than a Thoreau-Emerson Utopian, and considers himself—as he wrote in his prize-winning Harvard paper on Webster—“a disinterested . . . man of wisdom who continually worked with others of his sort to resolve any controversy which threatened national harmony.”

Google is Taking Over the Internet

2005-09-01T15:14:00.000-04:00

As part of the company's promise to "organize the world's information", Google introduces "a far-reaching plan to destroy all the information it is unable to index." The project is dubbed Google Purge.

Jewish Philosophy Via Halakhah

2005-08-31T17:20:00.000-04:00

In the recent Edah Journal, Rabbi Dr. Alan Brill reviews the three collections of articles and speeches of Rabbi Dr. Aharon Lichtenstein as a way of evaluating his thought in general and his role as a leader of "modern" or "centrist" Orthodoxy. There's a lot to say about the article but I'll defer to close students of R. Lichtenstein for the details of his approach. One point of Dr. Brill's, though, stood out to me as somebody concerned with the appropriate method of doing philosophy of Judaism:

In the texts cited to prove his social views, we gain a window into R. Lichtenstein’s approach. He avoids the texts of Jewish thought of the last millennium except for those of the Eastern European beit midrash; he does not cite liturgists, midrash, medieval philosophers or kabbalists. Instead, he bases his corporate view of life on the legal texts that discuss the laws of sacrifice, property responsibility, and the four watchmen. His proof text on the need to work is a citation from Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Gezeilah 6:11) that a dice player cannot be a witness because his vice places him outside of society. This case is paradigmatic of the way in which R. Lichtenstein takes a particular halakhah and globalizes it into a general idea about society.

It seems obvious that on this point, R. Lichtenstein takes a page from his rebbe and father-in-law. R. Soloveitchik devotes the last section of The Halakhic Mind to advocating the approach which Dr. Brill criticizes:

...There is only a single source from which a Jewish philosophical Weltanschauung could emerge; the objective order - the Halakhah... The halakhic compass would also guide us through the lanes of medieval philosophy and reveal structural standards by which to judge and evaluate the philosophical thought of the golden age... Out of the sources of Halakhah, a new world view awaits formulation.

Personally, I think the shift from medieval philosophical methods to what I'll call "philosophy via Halakhah" is the most important treasure that R. Soloveitchik bestowed on the Jewish community (at least as far as Jewish philosophy goes). Of course, neither R. Soloveitchik nor R. Lichtenstein exclude biblical references, midrashim, kabbalistic sources, or medieval philosophic ones; but their focus is the normative Halakhah.

In traditional Judaism, the Gemera is authoritative in a unique way. Even biblical episodes are understood by the great rabbis through rabbinic lenses. More importantly, though, basic halakhic categories such as the four shomrim (watchmen) are considered to be unchanging and objective - which makes them suitable as the raw material for philosophy. The realities of space and time influence only the application of such halakhot, not their essence. Poskim may disagree about the status of a particular shomer (watchman) but none would deny the halakhic fact of four distinct kinds and their implications for compensation. The weight that Halakhah carries in governing the life of the traditional Jew, I think, stems from this basic assumption.

Halakhah is the window into the divine mind. In formulating a genuinely Jewish philosophical position, it makes sense to rely primarily on such foundational sources. It is the basic halakhic principles around which traditional Jewish life bases itself. If Jewish philosophy is to be grounded in the Jewish experience, it must focus on what motivates that experience.

Flew: Atheist Turned Deist

2005-08-31T15:32:00.000-04:00

Long time atheist and philosophy professor, Antony Flew (at age 81!) concedes deism. It's actually old news (December '04) but it's just been pointed out to me, thanks to Godol Hador.

Ask the Chaplan

2005-08-28T02:05:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I suggested that that perhaps science and religion don't clash because each is concerned, at the end of the day, with fundamentally different kinds of questions. Apparently, Richard Dawkins disagrees, calling such a solution an "appeasement policy":

I once asked a distinguished astronomer, a fellow of my college, to explain the big bang theory to me. He did so to the best of his (and my) ability, and I then asked what it was about the fundamental laws of physics that made the spontaneous origin of space and time possible. "Ah," he smiled, "now we move beyond the realm of science. This is where I have to hand you over to our good friend, the chaplain." But why the chaplain? Why not the gardener or the chef? Of course chaplains, unlike chefs and gardeners, claim to have some insight into ultimate questions. But what reason have we ever been given for taking their claims seriously? Once again, I suspect that my friend, the professor of astronomy, was using the Einstein/Hawking trick of letting "God" stand for "That which we don't understand." It would be a harmless trick if it were not continually misunderstood by those hungry to misunderstand it. In any case, optimists among scientists, of whom I am one, will insist, "That which we don't understand" means only "That which we don't yet understand." Science is still working on the problem. We don't know where, or even whether, we ultimately shall be brought up short.

The answer to "why the chaplain" isn't because of his claim to some esoteric wisdom. If that were the case, Dawkins would be right to question the credibility of such a claim. The answer is that, unlike the scientist, the chaplan is presumably concerned with that kind of question. Interestingly, Dawkins' conversation with the astronomy professor is evidence of exactlty that point. The professor simply wasn't interested in the question.

I have no doubt that science will provide answers to questions we have yet to dream of asking. Much of what the we don't understand about the world will likely be high-school science to my grandchildren. But there are certain kinds of questions that science won't answer, not so much because it can't, but because it isn't trying to. Of course, religion may not have the answers either. But if you want to know, like Dawkins does, what "made the spontaneous origin of space and time possible", I suggest you ask somebody who's interested in the question.

World's Shortest Personality Test

2005-08-28T01:05:00.000-04:00

Think they got it right? People who know me, feel free to weigh in.

You are dependable, popular, and observant.
Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness.
In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do.

You are unique, creative, and expressive.
You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while.
And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

Take the World's Shortest Personality Test

via Balloon Juice

Why Does the Left Hate Israel?

2005-08-27T21:14:00.000-04:00

For all of you world leaders racking your brains to figure out a way to end terrorism in the world, just listen to Cindy Shehan: "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."

First of all, Palestinian violence against Israelis long preceded the State, let alone the Occupation. More to the point though, the Left is making itself sound ridiculous by holding her up as a hero.

I've been a Democrat since I first registered to vote and I still am. Where are my Democratic leaders when Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld stick out their neck for Israel over and over again, defending her from the senseless Euro-Arab antisemitism? Why do I only hear right-wing pundits praise Israel as the bastion of freedom and liberty that she is? Why are liberals turning their backs on their most loyal voters in the history of the country?

A Chapter in the Book of Peace

2005-08-23T11:39:00.000-04:00

As should come as no surprise, Elie Wiesel offers a tempered, intelligent, and insightful perspective on the Disengagement from Gaza. In 1991, when Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles into Israel, Wiesel remembers seeing Palestinians dancing in the streets and on the roofs of their houses.

I saw them. I was in Jerusalem, and I could see what was happening in the Arab quarter of the Old City. It happened again later, each time a suicide terrorist set off a bomb on a bus or in a restaurant.

But Wiesel's Judaism demands a higher standard:

And here I am obliged to take a step back. In the tradition I claim, the Jew is ordered by King Solomon "not to rejoice when the enemy falls." I don't know whether the Koran suggests the same.

He then dares to imagine a Palestinian leadership that would embrace and encourage such a standard of decency:

Let's imagine that, faced with the tears and suffering of the evacuees, the Palestinians had chosen to silence their joy and their pride, rather than to organize military parades with masked fighters, machine guns in hand, shooting in the air as though celebrating a great battlefield victory. Yes, imagine that President Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues, in advising their followers, extolled moderation, restraint, respect and a little understanding for the Jews who felt themselves struck by an unhappy fate... I will perhaps be told that when the Palestinians cried at the loss of their homes, few Israelis were moved. That's possible. But how many Israelis rejoiced?

Yet, even the crisis in the Holy Land, like the Holocaust he survived, fails to shake his remarkable optimism. "Gaza," he says, "after all, is but one chapter in a book that must ultimately be about peace."

(via Seth Chalmer)

A Really Bad Survey

2005-08-21T01:13:00.000-04:00

A friend sent me an online poll called "How Liberal / Conservative Are You?" Some of these kind of polls are interesting, especially if you're surprised by the results. This poll was just terrible. Here's an example:

2. Immigration policies

(a) Should be less strict. Immigrants enhance this country.
(b) Should be more strict. Too many people enter illegally.

First of all, the choices aren't mutually exclusive. I happen to believe both. I agree that immigration laws should be less strict in allowing immigrants into the US. But we should be more strict in enforcing whatever laws we do have. National security requires that we know who is living in the country at any given time.

Here's another idiot question:
4. Public education could be improved by

(a) Having a voucher system
(b) Revoking No Child Left Behind

For the sake of public education, I really hope that there are more options than those. And again, they're not mutually exclusive.

11. It's more important for our country

(a) Reduce the deficit and national debt
(b) To help the poor and helpless

Well, when you put it that way, it seems kind of obvious.

This one's my favorite:

8. Some people have less luck than others

(a) False
(b) True

Tough question, right? The wonderfully unbiased survey is trying to figure out whether you believe that people "deserve" what they "earn". Thus, a = conservative and b = liberal. Something tells me that's not quite accurate.

The Good Ol' Days

2005-08-19T14:43:00.000-04:00

Don't you just miss the days when the holiness Sunday, the Christian Sabbath, permeated American culture? I don't, but William Ecenbarger does:

There was a time, not so long ago, when Sundays were special - and it didn't matter if you were religious or not. Whether our motives were sacred or secular, we all followed the prescription from Genesis for quiet contemplation.

Translation: There was a time, not so long ago, when even non-Christians did at least something Christian. I have more to say about how annoying (and offensive) it is when Christians lamet about the good ol' days of blue laws and prayer in school. But I have to get ready for the real Sabbath - Friday night, that is.

Misunderstanding the Question

2005-08-16T00:40:00.000-04:00

When I started blogging, there were a few topics I decided I wasn't going to touch. One was the subject of my thesis: Plato's Euthyphro and Rabbinic Literature. I caved on that one last week. Another was the creationism/intelligent design vs evolution debate. Something about that whole issue really annoyed me but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. That is, until I read this post by Julian Sanchez.

For a lot of people, positing a deity is a pretty straightforward form of inference to the best explanation—and for a lot of our history, given the dizzying complexity of the natural world, it was scarcely an unreasonable hypothesis. Evolutionary theory is seen as a threat to religion precisely because, at least when they're first forming their views, most people don't rely on "faith" at all: They're rational empiricists to a much greater degree than most secularists probably give them credit for.

Julian's right. "Intelligent design" isn't religion; it's just bad science. And its handful of advocates misunderstand both. They mistake the Bible (the first chapter of Genesis at least) as describing a physical reality when in fact its focus is a spiritual one. As R. Heschel explains:

Science... describes and explains the way in which things behave in terms of casual necessity. It does not try to give us an explanation in terms of logical necessity - why things must be at all, and why the laws of nature must be the way they are (italics in original).

Science is interested in "what" and "how" questions: how did life as we know it develop into what it is? Or, what's the structure of an electron? The answer doesn't clash with religion because religion (mature religion, that is) addresses a different kind of question. A question about why things exist at all and what they mean.

The confusion comes in because the two kinds of questions sound alike and are easily confused. "How did life come to be?" for example. The appropriate answer depends on your perspective. Which kind of question are you asking? R. Heschel gives an analogy:

On a lovely summer afternoon an influential educator admired the sky. His little girl turned and asked: "What is there beyond the sky?" The father gave her a "scientific" answer: "Ether, my child." Whereupon the girl exclaimed: "Ether!" and she held her nose.

More Choices

2005-08-15T15:35:00.000-04:00

Patrick Basham has a good article on the importance of competition in congressional elections. "Political competition," he argues, "heightens voter interest, stimulates the adoption of distinctive policies by candidates and parties, and produces higher voter turnout." So many polls suggest that Americans aren't crazy about either major candidate in elections. Last year, voting in my first presidential election, I seriously considered abstaining or writing myself in simply because couldn't decide which candidate I disliked less.

Current redistricting practices and gerrymandering really have to go. They have "evolved into an electoral instrument to protect and strengthen the incumbency advantage." Third parties have to be allowed in but it's only possible with some major institutional changes. Libertarian and Green parties nominating presidential candidates is a waste of good ideas. The problem is that they can't get into Congress and the only way to have some kind of voice is to try for the national scene.

I hate having to vote for the lesser of two evils; I want more choices. Sounds like an unreasonable request, doesn't it? That's the sad part.

Unitive Time Consciousness

2005-08-14T17:08:00.000-04:00

What does it mean to mourn for tragedies of the past? From Rav Soloveitchik's "Avelut Yeshanah and Avelut Hadash":

The past is not gone; it is still here. The future is not only anticipated, it is already here, and the present connects the future and the past. That is what I mean by a unitive time consciousness... We say in the Kinnot, "On this night, be-leil zeh, my Temple was destroyed." "This night" means a night 1900 years ago; "be-leil zeh" means tonight. Apparently, that night nineteen hundred years ago is neigther remote nor distant from us; it is living - as vibrant a reality as this fleeting moment in the present. The unitive time consciousness contains an element of eternity. There is neither past nor future nor present. All three dimensions of time merge into one experience, into one awareness. Man, heading in a panicky rush toward the future, finds himself in the embrace of the past. Bygones turn into facts, pale memories into living experiences and archaeological history into a vibrant reality... Historical mourning is based upon this unitive time consciousness.

Disengagement Video Game

2005-08-14T00:51:00.000-04:00

This is as tasteless as it gets. From Ha'aretz:

The "disengagement game"... puts the player into Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's shoes. Sharon, sitting in a bulldozer, has to remove orange-clad children protesting the pullout... The prime minister has to run into a protesting child with the bulldozer's shovel... Sound effects are a bizarre evil laugh of the horror-movie genre.

The prime minister has a few other tools at his disposal. He can use a club or a kick to disperse the children, or release a herd of pinkish-purple pigs, which puts the pious kids on the run. Sharon's doomsday weapon, after he has collected 75 young protesters, is to "explode" himself from anger, at which point the children fly in every direction. The object of the game is to collect as many points as possible, awarded by the number of children evacuated.

Responding to criticism, the game's creators actually defended themselves: "The disengagement game was selected because of its current-events value and its humor. It was not intended to hurt anyone's feelings or take a political stand." (Are you kidding me?) According to the article, 50,000 people have downloaded the game so far. 50,000 people have decided that the suffering of Gush Katif residents is an appropriate source of humor and entertainment.

Look, I realize this is a loaded political issue with strong advocates on both sides. But regardless of what you think about the Disengagement, you still can't ignore the fact that real people living in Gaza are being kicked out of their homes this week. That's not funny.

Quoting the Rav

2005-08-10T13:22:00.000-04:00

Rav Soloveitchik on how Torah eludes the constraints of time and space:

When I sit down to study, I immediately find myself in the company of the scholars of the Mesorah. The relationship between us is personal. The Rambam is at my right; Rabbenu Tam to my left. Rashi sits at the head and explains, Rabbenu Tam asks, the Rambam codifies and Rabad comments. They are all in my small room, sitting around my table. They look at me with fondness, playful with me regarding the logic and the text, encouraging and strengthening me like a father.

The study of Torah is not simply a didactic act; involvement in the words of Torah is not simply a technical formal matter concretized via the creation and exchange of ideas. It is a powerful experience involving the closeness of many generations, the joining of spirit to spirit and the connection of soul to soul. Those who transmit the Torah and those who receive it meet one another at the same historic juncture.

What If Steroids Weren't Dangerous?

2005-08-08T14:56:00.000-04:00

In the wake of the steroids controversy in pro sports, Arthur Caplan raises the possibility of a much broader ethical dilemma:

It is easy to condemn steroid use. The drugs, while effective, are dangerous. But what if they were not? How are professional and amateur sports going to deal with the impending explosion in performance-enhancing drugs and bioengineering tricks that can boost performance with little or no risk for the user?
...
Scientists around the world are busy making pills that enhance our performance a bit by letting us sleep better, fight fatigue, slow the loss of memory, speed up learning, recover more quickly from hard exertion and calm anxieties. Some of us already are benefiting from drugs like these when we use Ambien, Provigil, Ritalin, Prozac or Effexor.
...
We show up at the Olympics with our athletes who have the best training, superb diets, and top-flight equipment and whomp the tar out of athletes from poor nations, some of whom seem to have shown up just to get a decent meal. We are used to employing science to our advantage when it comes to sports, so why should we draw the line at genetic engineering or new miracle pills?
...
Is the point of sport to see what human beings can do without aid of any sort in fair competition? If so, we may need to close the training facilities and cut back on what dietitians and trainers are allowed to do.

But if the point of sports is to test the limits of human performance, then we had better get ready to add genetic engineers and a bevy of pharmacologists to the hordes of specialists now working with elite athletes from elementary school to the pros.

The issue goes deeper than just sports. The fact that we still stigmatize people on psychiatric medication stems from the same confusion about what drugs and chemicals really are. When somebody takes antibiotics for strep throat, we consider the medication as restoring the person to a "normal" healthy state. And a sling for a dislocated shoulder isn't frowned upon as cheating nature. Our culture hasn't figured out, though, what to make of the advancements of neurobiology and psychiatry. I think one reason is that we really have no idea what's going on.

I don't have a good answer and I certainly don't know where to draw the line. But the steroids controversy is just one manifestation of a bigger problem. Making arbitrary distinctions about what constitutes "drug use" will only take us so far.

Alright... I'll Post About Ta'ame Ha-Mitsvot

2005-08-07T23:01:00.000-04:00

I wrote my senior honors thesis on a hypothetical dialoge between Socrates and Hazal, focusing on the philosophical implications of ta'ame ha-mitsvot (rationalizing mitsvot). By the time I finished, I was completely exhausted by the subject matter. While blogging on related Jewish topics, I stayed far away from this one. That said, two bloggers whom I usually enjoy reading (Hirhurim and Not The Godol Hador) have sufficiently tempted me to jump back into the fray.

Any answer to the question "Why do we do mitsvot" short enough to fit on one page is almost certainly insufficient (although not necessarily wrong). Of course, the "because God said so" answer is popular but not enough. It begs the question "Why did God say so?" To answer that question with "just because" or "no reason" renders God's will arbitrary and thus, lacking justification. In fact, the Mishnah (Makkot 3:16) is quite clear about why God commands mitsvot: "The Holy One, blessed be He, desired to grant merit to Israel." As Kehati explains: "He multiplied warnings and prohibitions for them, even regarding things from which man naturally keeps apart, for since they stay away from them because the Torah has thus commanded, their merit is increased." This implies, of course, that such actions had some merit to begin with. They are justified, at least in part, without being accompanied by the divine imperative. The act of God commanding, then, serves to somehow enhance the already righteous deed to a higher level.

Louis Jacobs captures this idea well:

Although God commands them it is not implied that the command is the reason for their observance, so that if God had commanded man to steal or to murder this would have been the right thing to do. On the contrary, the commands are announced in such a way as to suggest that they are already fully comprehensible to man as the basis for living the ethical life… Once God has commanded, however, the command itself is, of course, an additional reason for its observance.

You Gotta Feel Bad For This Guy

2005-08-07T20:11:00.000-04:00

Here's a real heartbreaking story. According to Daily Mail:

An extreme Muslim cleric whose family have been living on benefits in Britain for 20 years says it would not be 'fair' to deport him...

Since Syrian-born Bakri settled in Britain, he and his extended family have raked in benefits amounting to at least £300,000. He is registered disabled because of an injury to his leg during his childhood, and was recently supplied with a £31,000 Ford Galaxy under the Motability scheme.

Bakri, who lives in a £200,000 home in North London, tops up his £250-a-week benefit payments with an extra £50 incapacity allowance. He has praised the September 11 terrorists as 'magnificent', called Israel 'a cancer' and said homosexuals should be 'thrown from Big Ben'.

In January, he declared that Britain had become a 'land of war', and called on Muslims to unite behind Al Qaeda. He has supported suicide bombings and urged his followers to kill non-Muslims ' wherever, whenever'.

Don't you just want to give him a big teddy bear?

(via Dean)

How Israel Responds to Jewish Terrorism

2005-08-06T22:37:00.000-04:00

The news of Friday's terrorist attack in Shfaram left me staring blankly at the computer screen. I vaguely remember Baruch Goldstein's rampage, killing 29 Muslim civilians during a prayer service. But at the time, I wasn't as aware of current events and don't remember the news coverage and commentary that immediately followed. About last week's attack, though, I have a sense of what it means and it's making me sick.

I wasn't alone in feeling disgusted. The entirety of Israeli society condemned the attack without reservation - the kind of condemnation that's rare in Middle East today. It's Israel's response, I think, that sets it apart from its neighbors. I was referred to this editorial in the New York Sun:

Prime Minister Sharon immediately denounced the killings as "a reprehensible act by a bloodthirsty Jewish terrorist." The leader of the settlers' council, Bentsi Lieberman, said, "Murder is murder is murder, and there can be no other response but to denounce it completely and express revulsion."
Contrast these absolute condemnations to a recent response of the Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to terrorism against Jews. Last month, after two grandparents were shot dead by Palestinian Arab gunmen, Mr. Abbas said, "The Palestinian Authority will make every effort to stop these useless operations." Not because murder is murder and murdering is wrong, but because they are "useless." Because Israel doesn't buckle to terrorism and a different tactic is needed.

There was no dancing in the streets of Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, like the celebrations in Arab villages after 9/11, no Israeli politicians or religious leaders blaming Palestinian violence and oppression, nobody making excuses for what is, in fact, cold-blooded murder. Israeli society looked the tragedy in the eyes and said "I'm sorry." May God forgive us.

"Christian" is Short For "Judeo-Christian"

2005-08-05T17:39:00.000-04:00

The term "Judeo-Christian" seems a bit redundant. Insofar as Christianity sees itself as the legitimate heir to Jewish religion, to be Christian is to properly understand and carry out the covenant between God and the Jewish People. The term "Judeo-Christian" merely makes this position explicit. When people talk about "Judeo-Christian values", they mean Christian values and simply wish to add that such Christian values stem from properly understanding Judaism.

As I fully reject that Christian claim, I find the expression annoying. For one thing, Judaism and Christianity have a lot less in common than many seem to believe. Despite sharing a fundemental text, we read it through a very different set of lenses than Christians do. For traditional Jews, at least, the biblical text is understood in the larger context of the rabbinic tradition. (I realize this is a bit of an oversimplification but I don't want to dwell on it for now). Fundamentalism, as refering to the literal rendering of the biblical text, doesn't make sense to even the most right-wing of Orthodox Judaism - which advocates reading the Bible in rabbinic perspective.

That said, it boggles my mind when Jews adopt the very Christian jargon that undermines them. In this article by Dennis Prager, "Judeo-Christian" appears 11 times. (He also refers to the Jewish Bible as "Old Testament" - a term that carries connotations of being outdated). He proceeds to quote verses as if they weren't accompanied by a 2000-year-old rabbinic tradition. I'm picking on Prager somewhat arbitrarily; he's not alone. It's become somewhat of a trend for right-wing Jewish thinkers to try to sound Christian. Traditional Jewish treatments of "social conservative" topics marshal in the revelent rabbinic and halakhic material and thus, present a more nuanced and sophisticated view.

When Christians present a Christian view of the Bible, well, that makes sense. I realize that guys like Prager are trying to make themselves credible to a greater religious audience but I still don't like it.

Flatter Yourself

2005-08-05T02:05:00.000-04:00

I always knew I had a beautiful name... Go ahead, try it.

(via Bitch Ph.D)

Welcome To Sago Boulevard

2005-08-04T02:20:00.000-04:00

...formerly known as David's Blog.
(David's Blog --> Sago Blvd ID --> Sago Boulevard, ID --> Sago Boulevard)