[Avodah] Conflating TIDE with TuM Philosophies

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 07:19:31AM -0400, Cantor Wolberg wrote:
: M.M. wrote the following which was part of a confusing posting: "Torah  
: is the how, but derech eretz is the what, and how can the how exist
: without the what?"

: Reading the above clarifies for me the following definition of  
: philosophy by Voltaire:
: He described philosophy as a blind man searching in a dark room for a  
: black cat that isn't there.

On the contrary! I think he captured TIDE almost identically to the
Seridei Eish's description:

	The Torah, according to Rav Hirsch, is the force that gives
	form. Form, to Aristotle's thought, means a thing's essential
	nature in distinction to the substance from which it is
	embodied. Derekh Eretz is merely the matter on which Torah works.
		-- Essay in "Shimshon Rephael Hirsch: Mishnaso Vishitaso"

While RYBS talks about creative decisionmaking between conflicting
priorities ("ramatayim tzofim"), RSRH is in terms of unity -- an ehrlicher
yid is a noble soul by both criteria. Torah ennobles, culture ennobles. In
this way I see huge overlap in the goals of Slabodka Mussar and TIDE. Not
quite identical, by a long shot, but there is a reason why both produced
people who would be admirable in the secularly cultured person's eyes
(and well dressed, to boot) and dreamed of revolutionizing the world.

See <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/07/tide-variants-on-a-theme.shtml>.
My meanderings on TIDE, TuM, R' Kook, the CI, the Gra, R' Hutner --
how they are similar and how they differ in their approach to chol, are
largely an indication of what the chevrah here were capable of changing
my mind about.

Another major difference is that TuM is academic, while TIDE is an issue
of culture. TIDE can therefore be easily applied in any life.

In contrast, I have no idea how one could really have a TuM based
community. I am pretty much an academic by inclination (if not in reality
-- I work in the financial industry), but most people are not.

TUM (or whatever RYBS himself would have called it) isn't the only place
where I believe RYBS's philosophy suffered because he didn't understand
the huge gap between himself and the middle of the bell curve.

In Halachic Man, homo religiosus and coginitive man find resolution in
halakhah as a creative partnership with the A-lmighty. How many of us
create halakhah? How many of us have he'aros at such a frequency that
that creativity dominates our relationship to it?

I think that this gap between RYBS's ideals and the experience of those
he tried to disseminate them to has much to do with how none of his
students actually follow the entirety of his example. They simply can't.
And this is why MO is simply splitting in two (or more) without RYBS as
a charismatic unifying leader. He left MO an ideal that can't support the
community outside the university.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Today is the 9th day, which is
micha at aishdas.org        1 week and 2 days in/toward the omer.
http://www.aishdas.org   Gevurah sheb'Gevurah: When is strict justice
Fax: (270) 514-1507                            most appropriate?