[Avodah] Religion and Falsifiability

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Oct 24, 2007 at 05:06:36AM -0400, david guttmann wrote:
: RDR said:
:>If I can translate, RMB says it would make him question, not the Torah, but
:> how we implement it today. 
...
: Not necessarily. See the introduction to pirush Hamishna of the Rambam (page
: 23 in the Kapach edition)...
: His famous twofold answer follows :All people exist to prepare the
: environment and serve the few Ovdei Hashem and second to keep company to the
: few savants...

I find this Rambam exceedingly difficult.

The differenece is that the Rambam is placing us much closer to the
peak of what mankind is capable of acheiving, and thus has to explain
why HQBH made creatures that way.

However, it makes no difference in our original question. Each person
still has to live as to become one of those few. The Rambam may explain
why Hashem created a world in which most people don't get the Torah
and of those who do, most do not try to follow it, and of those who do,
few get it right. But the Rambam does not change the basic premise that
few do get it right, few are true ovedei Hashem, who "implement the Torah"
correctly. And the rest of us are obligated to try joining that few. The
need for the rest of us to rethink our implementation of "keeping the
Torah" is still there.

All that said, I would be surprised if our community did show a lack of
measurable refinement overall. In chessed alone: all 5 of North Jursey's
most charitable communities (according to a local paper's audit) contain O
communities. How many non-Jewish communities pull together a bikur cholim,
volunteer chevrah, tomchei Shabbos, pull together their own EMS service
(as needed), a dozen gemachs, etc...? I am just defending my decision that
it would not be a show stopper for me -- just a source of surprise.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where
micha at aishdas.org        you are,  or what you are doing,  that makes you
http://www.aishdas.org   happy or unhappy. It's what you think about.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                        - Dale Carnegie