My Path

, the 31-page statement is written for Catholic educational institutions. Titled, “ Male and Female He Created Them ,” http://www.educatio.va/content/dam/cec/Documenti/19_0997_INGLESE.pdf “The young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created…. Sex education should help young people to accept their own bodies.” Sex education must avoid the “pretension” to attempt to “cancel out sexual difference because one no longer knows how to deal with it.” The Catholic Church was doing a lot better when it refused to compromise with secularism. I hope this new step will show that the church is returning to its roots.

The problem with German Idealism is that each one had some important contribution and yet you can not point to any single person as having gotten everything right. To make sense of it I think you have to take all of them. Kant, Maimon, Shultze, Reinhold, Fries and Hegel. You can not simply go back before them because there are simply too many questions that come up. That is you can not simple revert to Spinoza or John Locke etc. But you can not take any single person in the Kantian group either.

I have a great deal of trouble in getting to learn Torah. Certainly no new ideas are coming to me since I stop learning with David Bronson my learning partner. But for what it is worth I wanted just to mention a few random thoughts I had about Bava Metzia page 99. The first thing I think is important is in Tosphot very first question. At first glance it looks hard to understand why Tosphot just does not use the end of the Tosephta that he brings to answer his own question. I mean to say this. Rav Ami in our Gemara on page 99 says one who lends to another person an ax of hekdesh (that was dedicated to the Temple) transgresses the prohibition and the second person can use it.  In the Tosephta it says (as far as I can recall from a few days ago when I had a chance to take a look at that page) that ten people that use an ax one after the other,--they all transgress the prohibition of using hekdesh [an object dedicated to the Temple]. But then it says if one gives it to another, t...

Thanks to “believe all women,” it spiraled to a place where accusations went unchecked and were instantly believed. Some Web sites maintain running lists of accused men, even if accusations are anonymous and/or largely uncorroborated. https://nypost.com/2019/07/14/believe-all-women-makes-the-pence-rule-just-common-sense/

I have had doubts about the Musar movement and the whole Litvak path because of what seems to be a lack of effectiveness. But as for the major goal I agree. But even in terms of effectiveness maybe I am wrong and in fact it accomplishes  to some degree what it sets out to do. My own experience with the people in Musar and the Litvak world has been mixed. So in stead of using the Musar movement as the prime Ideal--in stead I look at my parents as the best approach and modify that as far as i can with ideas from the Musar movement and the Gra and Rav Nahman.

Instead of the Musar [Ethics] idea of learning a lot of Musar during the day--which was what Rav Israel Salanter was emphasizing--I think it is best to start the day with some paragraph of Musar that deals with the specific thing one needs to correct.

. And though my parents were Reform Jews still their general approach to religion was that it is לאו דווקא not really the most urgent thing in the world. More or less their approach was to be self sufficient to be  a mensch to act right and morally in all situations. To stay away from all and every kind of religious fanaticism. To marry a nice Jewish girl. That is there were things to my parents that was most necessary and things that were simply good but not obligatory. Learning and keeping Torah was certainly considered good and great but not in the way of the religious.  It is rather desirable as long as it does not interfere with simple  menschlichkeit ..