[Avodah] Dollar Bills In the Bathroom?

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Feb 04, 2011 at 10:45am EST, I wrote:
:     And according to the [re]verse side of the Great Seal of the United
:     States, printed about an inch away, the God in question is a Grand
:     Architect (shown by the lines and numbers involved in the pyramid)
:     who is above the world and passively watches it (the eye floating
:     above). There is a picture represtenting a Deistic concept of deity
:     on the same bill.

I erred. Not that this is 100% on topic, but it involves the metzi'us
without which the halachic discussion couldn't procede....

This is an accurate description of the eye and the pyramid before the
text was added. Here's a picture to help clarify what I'm talking about
<http://www.dw-jotd.com/images/great_seal_obverse.png>

The text reads "ANNUIT COEPTIS" on the top edge, and "NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM"
on the bottom.

"Annuit coeptis" means Providence "has approved of [our] undertakings".
Drawing a deduction that since they succeeded, God must have approved
of the revolution. That's not Deism.

("Novus ordo seclorum" is from Virgil's Evolugue and means "a new order
for the ages." "Seclorum" means "world" from which we get "secular" --
worldly, but also refers to time; lehavdil cf "le'olam". For more info,
see <http://www.greatseal.com>.)

In any case, we're back to just the trinitarian issue, and the reference
to the god of the trinity, rather than the True G-d or at least just
the Father (invoking Tosafos's shitah about shituf).

-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             "'When Adar enters, we increase our joy'
micha at aishdas.org         'Joy is nothing but Torah.'
http://www.aishdas.org    'And whoever does more, he is praiseworthy.'"
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