First – 507 respondents is not statistically relevant. Though I’d imagine the required 1500+ figure would show up a similar result.

Second – The Lockes and the Humes of political science developed the question: should a government act according to what the people WANT (Democrats – Clinton), or according to what they NEED (Republican – Bush), even if unpopular?

This is a tricky question. If law is determined by what people want, then if they are more comfortable with the idea that the Earth is flat then it will be flat – truth be darned. But if law goes by what they need, who exactly does the determining? How do they know what the people need?

Authentic Judaism (rare these days) has a hybrid mentality, unquestioningly determining what the people NEED, while understanding that what the people want affects what they need, and should be taken into account.

I’m with Simon, if I understand him correctly. Democracy is the best of awful forms of government. R’ Adin Steinsaltz’s Sanhedrin needs to become POPULAR to be an alternative to this nightmare in Israel. If it were populated by the kinds of persons more interested in welcoming wannabe Jews and pro-women, understanding of homosexuality and so on, plus some good marketing, we’d be on the right track.

Unfortunately, when our religious leaders are not busy running around in circles inspecting your plate to see if you’re eating mehadrin min hamehadrin min hamehadrin, they’re occupied with how high their own stockings are. We need to assur: “chadash min hatorah – assur”

I don’t suggest we burn books –  I’ve cautioned against that in other posts (Tabloids, yes, their disappearance would help make the world a better place. I’m saying that just as you are what you eat, members of society as a whole must watch what junk media they consume. Most important is to first be aware of what you’re watching (read the labels for ingredients).

That’s from our end as members of society. We generally shirk our responsibility, when we bear the major brunt of it.

What should a government do to protect society? Well everyone generally agrees that hate speech and incitement to violence is a no-no. What’s the solution? I mentioned the broader scope on speech taken by Judaism. Should that be adopted in all but name in slander and libel cases? If I reveal something about you that causes you to lose a billion dollars, what difference should it make if that fact is true or not?

What about passing a bill that requires TV networks to air un-skippable warnings inside shows such as Dexter where the serial killer is the chief protagonist, the hero, that aspirations towards such behaviour is a socially unacceptable? There must be something better?

The debate since Columbine has been whether music, video games, movies and even the news reports encourage actions, beliefs or tendencies within a population. I think they do. I don’t think the majority of people who consume such forms of entertainment end up killing people, but those on the edge of the bell curve might. The rebuttal is that these people would act violently anyway. I don’t buy that. Actions are not foregone conclusions and it’s foolhardy to set policy in expectation of such a scenario, instead of setting policy which will do everything possible to avoid that scenario. It’s like saying ‘I’m going to die eventually, so I may as well cross the street when cars are coming’. It’s one thing to put out messages to citizenry that murder is bad, and it’s quite plainly another to tell them on one hand that it’s bad while on the other allow them to play out games as the worst kinds of sadistic criminals and terrorists out there. There’s a difference between playing as a Taliban gunman and as a US soldier. Even with violence such as headshots and blood and guts and realism. If you gun down an innocent as the soldier, you should get booted from the game and lose all points. Teach with media, even as you entertain. 

Judaism teaches that to save one life is to save the entire universe. Why wouldn’t we take every reasonable step to encourage good actions in the real world?

I don’t understand R’ Schechter:
He respects R’ Druckman, then questions his ability to give pesak halacha? If you have ‘rabbi’ as a title, you may not like to do it, and may not be expert in every area of it-but you’d better be prepared to render pesak. A rabbi’s just for sermons? Dan Lechaf Zechut? Druckman led where noone else did. I DID a course AT YU showing tshuvot where our sages bent over backwards to avoid creating mamzers-yet mod orthodoxy condones a haredi path to make MORE?

Shame on them for their hypocrisy, and their incessant demands that Israel play the ‘peace’ game according to their rules.

I recently learnt a core idea about Rosh Hashanah and its relation to forgiveness of error.

It was in the first lecture of Rabbi Ezra Bick’s 13 middot lectures on KMTT. Worth learning so you don’t mindlessly say them when the day comes or be bored in shul.

Essentially he asks, ‘How can it be that just by saying the 13 middot we are assured of being forgiven?’

The answer is deep, but perhaps I can distill it to this: There’s G-d. Then there’s the Existence It created. The deal made after the golden calf incident is that whenever we creatures in Existence recognise that G-d is all the 13 attributes (greater elaboration needed on that point), then we merit to be forgiven.

In terms of Rosh Hashanah. Yes, G-d is G-d without creation ever having been. But G-d, after creation, now that Existence is formed, in this setup, for G-d to be King of Existence, those beings with free will are required to accept Him as King. This is Rosh Hashanah. At an earthly king’s coronation, when the crown is lowered onto his head and the people shout ‘long live the king’ – at which point is he king? It’s the statement by the people that makes him king over them, not the crown. No King without a people. (And no people without a King – things get Machiavellian rather quickly)

That’s Rosh Hashanah. And the deal is that our errors are forgiven when we choose to establish G-d over us, because It is the One able to forgive. This is why the power to forgive, we are told, rests with G-d, and not indirectly via other means such as angels.

This is a very powerful idea – and as Rabbi Bick points out, is a philosopher’s playground. “I thought G-d was Perfect?”. The best answer to this I’ve had is that G-d without Existence is Perfect (you can’t really say ‘before’ Existence as it includes time – how to account for one state before another is a separate discussion). G-d with Existence is still Perfect, but the setup is now different. G-d partners with us for whatever reason, to complete the world, and while Its essential Perfection is recognised necessarily, Its apparent, manifested perfection is made dependent on creatures with free will.

Another area: One needs two men to say kiddush together (usually achieved at synagogue) because, like witnessing the new moon, this is testimony and the law for testimony requires two. Testimony of what, exactly? it is said that if one says vayechulu in kiddush on a Friday night, with three kavvanot (intentions) beheld in our thoughts (that G-d exists, that It created Existence, that It sustains Existence with Hessed [which is defined loosely as 'undeserved freebies of goodness']), then one’s errors are wiped clean.

Can you see the connection between the two concepts, now?

Rabbi,

I agree with you. But we talk of the need for leadership. How can we hope to be at the head and not the tail when almost all Gedolei Yisrael remain utterly silent instead of consistently and firmly denouncing devastating chilulei Hashem emanating from within our Torah world?
 
We need religious leadership because they are ostensibly attuned to the Ultimate, Absolute Authority.
But how can anyone look to them if, because of their silence, one can’t bear to see their face?
 
I grew up secular. I know how they think: Zu Torah?
 
How do we solve this? Each Rosh Hashana we are all more demoralised than the last. Literally – de-moral-ised.
 
Shabbath Shalom.

Fire Tornado caught on film in Brazil. You can find a video of it spinning around and round on the web.

While I appreciate this man’s position suggesting New York can afford to wait to build the proposed Islamic centre/mosque near ground zero until the time “dhimmis” (i.e. Jews and Christians as second class citizens in Muslim lands) are able to build their places of worship in countries like Saudi Arabia, this static snap to the Reuter’s video link I stumbled across recently does not present your average person that would suggest building a synagogue in Mecca. And while we’re on topic – apparently the ‘mosque’ at the Pentagon is actually an interdenominational chapel that switches around multiple times a day to handle different prayer services -if so, those on the left rabidly, mindlessly, and insensitively bowing to the god of unconditional freedom and tolerance cannot use that to say it’s been done. Further, I’d welcome any bikie mates of this guy that wants to hold up an additional placard clarifying that we’d like to be able to build said places of worship above ground and/or taller than any nearby mosque if we so desire, as this too is one of the restrictions typically placed on dhimmis.

Examples of Islam that apply such restrictions have a serious inferiority complex. Or do they?

In Judaism there are restrictions placed on certain non-Jewish members of society in terms of their rights. An idol worshipper does not have the same religious freedoms as a Jew. Would this extend today to Muslims and Christians? For more, see Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm’s talk on www.YUtorah.org on how Halacha views Islam and Christianity. Of great interest is how Maimonides viewed the two also. In short, of the three elements of faith from which his 13 are derived (1: belief in one infinite G-d, 2: belief in mesorah/tradition/Torah from G-d to Moses to us being accurate, and 3: resurrection/Messiah etc) one is deemed to have screwed up #1, and the other, #2. I’ll let you guess which one’s which.

Do we, too, have an inferiority complex? What would we have to fear? Certainly there is the great concern that the pagan practices that were so abhorrent to G-d would be committed by Jews and make them worthy of expulsion. Any such practices were to be eradicated from our midst (in Israel). If so, it makes sense to deny pagans/polytheists from running around doing their thing in Israel because it would be detrimental to the integrity of a monotheistic society. What qualifies? Where is the line drawn between acceptable non-Jewish practice in a Torah-ideal Israel (whatever that is) and that which is not?