dauer said:
I don't think ideas exist independent of our own minds. They're attempts to catalog and/or explain things that may or may not exist independently themselves.
but when you consider the BIV problem, we can have no assurance that anything actually exists independently or not. in fact, from a purely multidimensional PoV, an idea may be conceptual, existing elsewhere but not here; all we are doing is connecting to the dimension where its independent existence is a fact.
I don't disagree, for example, that a=a. That's common sense. I would disagree if you told me that a=a has an independent existence.
i'm saying is that it has a *potentially* independent existence, if we can agree on that that'll be as close to shared axioms as i think we can expect.
The issue to me is whether G!d is referencing something that exists independently. Certainly, there are ideas and experiences which are connected with that label. That in itself doesn't mean that G!d has an existence beyond subjectivity. I think it is most likely, as you say, a case of axiomatic incompatibility.
now there you might be right - i'd say, you see, that G!D Is the Context in which this multidimensional space exists, that is how i understand 'EIN-SOF ['AYIN]. it is the proverbial "secret of the alef". but anyway, now we've identified that, we can move on.
Personally the reason I reject Kaplan is that he discarded so much spirituality and myth.
yes, because he didn't think it was "real" or "true" - but neither do you. for me, the belief in the independent existence in all this stuff is precisely why i refrain from discarding it, because i believe it is far more "real" and "true" than things which i know to be human constructs, like reason.
I just refuse to generalize from my experience of G!d about what G!d really is.
that for me is what "community" is about and, in particular, the idea of the "covenantal community" as a general, shared experience of G!D and what G!D really Is.
I would sum up the levels of meaning of religious action for me as: the personal (refinement of character) and spiritual (theotropic) growth of the individual, the personal (pursuing justice) and spiritual growth of the community, identification with community through shared myth and ritual that fosters all of the above and maintains skeletal structures from which future generations can find their own way.
there i think we are in violent agreement.
If G!d is by definition something Greater than everything else, then He can't be just some things among many. That would mean there's something greater than G!d.
that's what you need
tzimtzum for; although G!D Is Infinite, permeating every facet of space-time, or world-year-soul as the SY puts it, a "conceptual space" is Formed within the Infinite where G!D "retracts", or becomes "hidden" or "veiled".
I still wouldn't accept something as true simply because the Torah is understood that way.
that shouldn't be necessary unless it is an axiomatic matter, in the sense of a maimonidean "yesod ha-Torah".
I don't think that's hippyish, just logical.
kipper time, hippy! RESPECT MY AUTHORITAAAH.
How do you understand emunah vs faith? As I understand it, emunah is related to the idea of trust whereas faith has more to do with belief.
even more so - it can be called "confidence"; ie belief in outcomes. that is why a belief in the messianic age is important.
I like some of Wilber's ideas but his narcissism is very pervasive.
one gets that from the liner notes somewhat...
I meant that, even if your evidence is the actions of a respected posek, the situations that you're pointing out, isn't that them acting against the way things are being done? And if you take their example in those situations, and don't take their example in others, is that then picking and choosing? And if I'm understanding the methodology incorrectly, could you explain in some greater detail?
there are two good examples. one is the example of rav feinstein and the milk, where the perceived explanation (he's discarding that carton because the hechsher isn't
halav yisrael) is not the same as the actual explanation (the milk was off). you cannot generalise from the second situation, whereas you can from the first. the second good example is
lifnim min'shurat ha-din, where a statement that
halav yisrael is "preferable" can be interpreted either as a) we've all got to keep that standard and non-HY is not acceptable or b) that is an additional stringency which you can keep if you want to be
makhmir. this combines with various other principles, such as whether you're being needlessly stringent about a halakhah de-rabbanan, or whether you're being baselessly lenient about a halakhah de-oraita. and sometimes, of course, a posek will make a point in a particular way, such as the famous (i'm not if sure it's apocryphal or not) story of the london rabbi who ate a paper plate in the middle of his Shabbat morning drasha, then announced "you know, i wouldn't feed this to a dog", as a way of sending a clear message that people were being stupid to demand kasher-le-pessah disposables. the point is this - halakhah is very much more complicated than people imagine and the layers of complexity are very, very deep. i tend to avoid anything that might be interpreted as a psak halakhah because i am, as i've said many times, simply NOT COMPETENT in such matters. all i can do is talk about how i understand it. i wouldn't want anyone to start doing things because i do them. it's another thing in my own house, but even there mrs bb has "domain power".
1. Tradition gets a vote but not a veto.
this for me depends on how you understand "tradition". if you know how a beit din works, tradition in the sense of "minhag ha-maqom", or "taqqanat ha-kehillah", or any number of essentially pragmatic considerations are co-opted into the halakhic process with significant effects. but you're interpreting it here as tradition = halakhah, as if halakhah was monolithic. that, for me, is playing artscroll's game - and i'm buggered if i'm going along with that, or i'll end up not eating kitniot on pessah. halakhah isn't even monolithic within individual communities.
2. Mitzvot are viewed as folkways.
again, the halakhic process co-opts the idea of folkways as outlined above. sometimes, they'd have force of authority, sometimes not. the ben ish
hai, the great baghdadi leader, was very much an innovator in this area, introducing some practices based on the norms of the kabbalists in jerusalem, rolling back some common errors that had grown up over centuries and, generally, cleaning house.
3. G!d is the power that makes for salvation
this is a meaningless formulation in my opinion. salvation from what? to what? with what purpose? what change is there as a result?
4. Judaism's an evolving religious civilization.
agree - except i'd include culture here.
5. The concept that Jews are chosen is completely rejected
presumably because it's based on some mistaken, internalised anti-semitic ideas about chauvinism.
6. Their synagogues are centers not just for Jewish religion, but also deal with culture. You can see the connection between their concept of a synagogue and the JCC's.
this is something i very much regret in the UK, although we are working on getting a JCC for london and already have a cultural centre. on the other hand, i also believe that this can cause the very ethnocentric/chauvinistic problems that point 5. was presumably intended to solve.
7. Liturgy is changed much more readily and radically than in Reform or Conservative Judaism.
probably because they don't really get the kabbalistic substructure of the liturgy, having dumped it all.
b'shalom
bananabrain
