<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:39 PM, Micha Berger wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite"><div><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000">...</font>but to open the question of how one decides what is "the<br>main idea", as variously explained by the numerous derakhim.<br>...<br>I have problems with the notion that there is one right answer. But in<br>that part of the book, before getting to the "how to fix it" part, RGR<br>effectively raises the question of how one would find /any/ right answer.<br></div></blockquote></div><div><br></div><div>I've been review this thread from the beginning, and unless I missed something, it seems like there hasn't been much (or any) argument against the idea that there is a "main idea" of Judaism.</div><div><br></div><div>I would argue that the main idea of Judaism is kol haTorah kulah. The reason extracting a main idea is so hard is precisely that all the pieces interweave so tightly. To the extent that the Torah is echad, it is as a singularity a main idea, but to the extent that we are incapable of comprehending it all simultaneously as one, that's not helpful for answering your question. But choosing any thread will automatically distort the whole.</div><div><br></div><div>This answer is not convenient: it doesn't market well, and it is hard to build a mussar campaign around. But that is because Torah and Judaism were not intended to be convenient, as per RYBS's footnote 4.</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>--</div><div>Daniel M. Israel</div><div><a href="mailto:dmi1@cornell.edu">dmi1@cornell.edu</a></div></div></span></span>
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