[Avodah] Societal Needs vs.Self-Perfectin was re: Religion and Falsifiability

[Micha Berger]

On Thu, November 1, 2007 11:19 pm, R Richard Wolpoe wrote:
: See Sanhedrin Mishna 9:5 [recnet Mishna yomis]
: The only missas beis  din that warrents Kippa due to flawed testimony
: is "horeg nefesh"
:
: Reason?
: Kehatti Citing Talmud: Only horgei Nefesh get kippah that even though
: that there are avieros hamuros than Shefichus damim, neverthless they
: do not entail haschasa yishuvo shel olam"
...
: Thus we see that the singular point is to enforce Yishuvo shel olam
: and to counter hash'chassas yishuva ehshel olam...

No, we see that the point of kippah is to enforce yishuvo shel olam.

Lemaaseh, if there are eidim rather than solid evidence, the hasraah
was valid, etc... one can get misah without risking the kelal. So it
would seem that rather than kippah proving your point, the rest of Mes
Makkos /disproves/ it.

This returns me to something I objected to earlier in this thread.
(And related to my discussion with Cantor Wolburg about chesed vs din.
Ever notice how rich we are with Rich[ard]s?) Proving one doesn't
disprove the absence of the other. You don't need to be a chassid of
RYBS to realize that life often presents you with choices between
conflicting *positive* values. Communities are built to serve their
members; the members' highest calling is to serve the community.

Dinei nefashos are based on uvi'arta hara'ah miqirbekha -- concern for
the kelal. In fact, when it comes to batei din as a qiyum of the
mitzvah to benei Noach, I may have to stop there. However, for our BD,
there is also the individual's kaparah motivating the onesh. Both are
real.

However, like in my summary of RYBS's dialectic in "Community", people
build communities because the individual does better in a group. The
group doesn't spawn individuals. There is an asymmetry. Man's calling
to serve the community can be seen as deriving from the community's
ability to help as many individuals as possible. And thus it's really
just my calling to help other individuals -- a tool for doing so. One
can't reflect that back to the community's duty to serve the
individual.

And so, if halakhah aims to aid society, one can read it as its aim to
aid as many individuals as possible. Doing so wholesale via
constructing the right society is an efficient way to do so. But that
devolves the second side of the dialectic. Two paragraphs ago I was
willing to say that chiyuv misah is caused by both uvi'arta hara'ah
and the onesh's redeeming effect on the chotei, now I am saying that
uvi'arta hara'ah is too aiding the individual -- all the individuals
in the klal.

The reverse can not be said. The kaparah of the dying man, or of the
whipped or fined mine, usually does not measurably aid society.

And thus, one could -- and did -- establish the whole edifice al regel
achas. "Man desani lakh, lechavertikha lo sa'avod". The duty is to the
individual chaver, and thus to the chevrah. Not to the chevrah
in-and-of-itself.

SheTir'u baTov!
-micha

-- 
Micha Berger             One who kills his inclination is as though he
micha at aishdas.org        brought an offering. But to bring an offering,
http://www.aishdas.org   you must know where to slaughter and what
Fax: (270) 514-1507      parts to offer.        - R' Simcha Zissel Ziv