bananabrain
awkward squadnik
that's not right at all. this is such an old chestnut. G!D Is by definition "capable" of anything. the fact that something doesn't generally happen doesn't mean it can't. G!D, in general, does not violate the laws laid down for how the cosmos functions for very good reasons. we are left to get on with things. we do not expect, for example, to be able to pray to be let off gravity for the day. besides, by definition, if you understand the way esoteric judaism works, even the rock is not empty of G!D. therefore whether the rock was "liftable" or not is determined ultimately by G!D's Will. by the same logic, physicists are not able to go beyond the assumption that there was some first cause beyond the first nanosecond of the big bang, although they may not "capitalise" "it". i guess one could say that G!D Is not "capable" of lifting said rock without violating the laws of physics, but then again G!D could do that if required - it just happens very, very, rarely if ever. in other words, G!D sets the universe to function according to certain rules, which are not often violated except for very good reasons. it's not about whims, or caprice, but about the mysterious workings of causality. i don't pretend to understand why exactly G!D wants me to be jewish, but it seems pretty clear that this is what is required of me. unfortunately, i think what you are doing is creating some sort of straw man around anthropomorphised supernatural forces, in order to say how the G!D i worship is one of these lesser forces and there's an ultimate one that is bigger. but i'm afraid that's just not correct. we can, of course, argue about whether G!D would be concerned about specifics down here, people and so forth, but that's a slightly different question. as we say, "everything is in the hands of Heaven except the awe of Heaven itself".AndrewX said:
the only recent one that's specifically text-based i can remember off the top of my head was actually nick's rather than yours, but i'm fairly sure we didn't get into these debates over nothing. it's things like ascribing to the word "Le-'OLaM" meanings that it does not have and missing meanings it does have. other than that, there's the one we've just discussed, where you appear to believe that i worship some sort of inferior tribal deity, rather than the Infinite Divine, based on, as far as i can see, absolutely ignoring what i've continually said on this subject and the basic fundamentals of jewish belief; indeed, not just that of so-called "orthodoxy". we do *not* worship one of the sefirot, G!D Forbid, nor should you conclude from the usage of particular Divine Names in the Torah that they refer only to this one aspect or interface. this is how you come across - but if this is not the case, then please tell me as much and we can stop arguing at cross-purposes.
i understand this, which is why i'm trying to give you an insight into what the sources say when you *do* consult them directly, as i do.
then the position that any of this actually exists at all is one of pure faith, with very little evidence to back it up. have you ever met one of these clairvoyants? even if you have, you are basically having to trust what they say, because you have no way to verify it for yourself. all i am saying is that you appear to be berating me for being pig-headed about my tradition, whilst being equally pig-headed about the faith and trust that your tradition seems to rely on. there's also the small matter that we actually have our sacred texts and have had them for a very long time and that the jewish people has a long and for the most part entirely verifiable history, unlike these secret wossnames of yours, which are, well, secret.
look, i do understand what you are trying to achieve, but the fact is, these "much higher authorities" are (assuming they exist) only attainable to a very small, select élite, as well as not exactly relevant to everyday life. we had an episode during the talmudic period where we resolved that running to G!D to arbitrate every time we had a dispute over an oven was simply evading our responsibility to think for ourselves. we cannot expect a Divine Voice (or indeed an "arahant") to speak up every time we need an answer - we need to take responsibility for ourselves. this principle is known as lo bashamayim hi - "it is not in Heaven" (deut. 30:11) and it is the basis for trusting human interpretation. it's not worth bothering the CEO for his decision about how often facilities management should clean the washrooms, if you could just read the manual. it doesn't mean he isn't there and isn't capable of intervening, it just means there's a time for that, but we're not children.
er... this isn't what i think. non-jews have been some of my greatest teachers about jewish sources. i'm always recommending people to read mary douglas and karen armstrong, for example. this isn't about who's allowed - it's about who's actually credible.
we've had this argument already. i told you it was a *proper name*, with the implied sense of the "royal we" and you thumbed your nose at me and told me "buzzz, wrong answer" or something like this, when in fact that is what it means and that is what everyone agrees that it means. your grounds for doing so were, as i recall, what it says in some theosophical dictionary. in fact, i'm not aware of a place in Torah where the singular of this word is in fact used (although please feel free to correct me). the E-Name is an interface, not a plural noun, used for a particular purpose. what i told you at the time, i seem to remember, is that thousands of jewish scholars have analysed these words for more than 2000 years and *none* of them have concluded what seems so obvious to you. are they all lying? are they all ignorant of what a plural noun looks like when andrewx, fresh from his perusals of the theosophical dictionary can go "ohohoh, those stupid jews, they've not noticed that it's a simple plural, which means it must be a group of celestial wossnames, not G!D at all" - i mean, our entire tradition is founded on asking difficult questions and you think this hasn't occurred to us?
i have no idea what these terms refer to, but if you try and link them to existing jewish terms, i will try and understand why this is so. the trouble is the theosophical tendency to make what are, to me (and apparently to vaj and thomas too) entirely arbitrary connections; like bob says, "use a different word".
then perhaps she should have. if you want to master Torah, you have to actually learn the stuff.
again, you're missing the point. the dentist didn't have to create the teeth - but he does need to understand how they work. if you want to go to an evolutionary biologist who specialises in teeth, go right ahead, but he's not actually going to be much practical use to you.
it's been tried many times, from the tower of babel (you should really read the midrashim about nimrod) to communist china - and the only thing that we've learnt from it is how much tragedy and oppression it causes whenever anyone tries to do it.
in case i haven't been sufficiently clear about this, judaism is not an evangelising religion. i am not out to convert you, nor am i interested in doing so. someone does not have to be jewish to be a good person.
i am as free as anyone else is to think for myself. as i said earlier, everything is in the hands of Heaven except the awe of Heaven; human free-will is paramount; we must have choice, otherwise we cannot have good and evil.
perhaps - but not at the place where we go "oh, we've been so stupid - all this time we should have been training our *clairvoyants* to read the stanzas of dyzan".
in the mishnah (tractate 'avot', also known as the "sayings of the fathers") the "chain of tradition" is described in minute detail.
our opinion (and it is our *opinion*, of course) is that moses talked to G!D in a way that nobody else ever has. the subsequent prophets were on a lower level and true jewish prophecy or neviut ceased with the last prophet (micah, i think, but i can never remember that one), although some lesser forms of prophecy known as "ruah ha-qodesh" still continued or continue, depending on who you talk to. we don't express opinions on other people's prophecy as we're not qualified to do so, but if said prophets presume to express opinions on Torah or to contradict Torah law, then we are entitled to use the Torah's criteria for how to evaluate what they say.
there are a lot of mystical ideas about this, in fact; it was a subject that greatly exercised the kabbalists. opinions vary, but most people seem to approve of the esoteric midrashic idea that in the beginning, G!D Wrote the Torah in letters of white fire, upon black fire. it is a way of describing how we understand what goes on in the Divine Mind - we only begin to understand it at the expense of distancing ourselves from the Pure Source; as we add more detail, we lose the clarity. there are a lot of ideas about why the first letter of the Torah is a "bet", the second letter of the alphabet - and from my own knowledge of the subject this relates to the relationship between the aleph and the bet themselves. the glyphs convey many different mystical concepts. to understand this, you'd have to study the sefer yetzirah and the bahir, although the zohar has a certain amount to say too.
because i've studied where they're from. how do you know your new meanings are meaningful?
and that's one of the reasons we're in this situation.
well, that's all well and good, but how are you to learn if you don't first understand the basics, before you end up leaping off into esoteric gymnastics?
because every time i am shown what these people have to say about "exoteric" judaism, all it does is show up how ignorant they are about what it is and how it actually works. for a start, the phrase "judeo-christian" is an absolutely misleading concept. and if i am to encompass a "larger world view", then it is more reasonable to expect it to be empirical and evidence-based - which is very far from this etheric-texts-cloud-cuckoo-land. i can understand what is close and personal to me based on my own experience, but stuff outside my experience i have to go on a basis of critical enquiry. thus, if you posit a million-year-old document, i want to see evidence. "a clairvoyant says it exists" is not evidence.
b'shalom
bananabrain
) actually cites the arising of the Buddhadharma some 2000 years earlier than the standard date which would place it well prior to the arising of the Judaic system.
