<div dir="ltr"><font face="trebuchet ms,sans-serif">No one else has voiced a problem. And in that particular post, every acronym is spelled out in first use except "Maharal", "Ramchal" and "RSRH".<br>
</font><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 9:58 AM, Prof. Levine <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:llevine@stevens.edu" target="_blank">llevine@stevens.edu</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<font size="3">At 09:37 AM 12/19/2012, R Micha wrote:<br><br>
I have to admit that I find a good deal of your responses below
incomprehensible due to your excessive use of abbreviations. I have
complained about this in the past.<br><br>
Please repost without abbreviations and please do me (and I bet
others) a favor and do not use abbreviations in the future save for
a few that are known to all.<br><br>
YL<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Message: 3<br>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:50:22 -0500<br>
From: Micha Berger <<a href="mailto:micha@aishdas.org" target="_blank">micha@aishdas.org</a>><br>
To: The Avodah Torah Discussion Group
<<a href="mailto:avodah@lists.aishdas.org" target="_blank">avodah@lists.aishdas.org</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [Avodah] Kabbala at Odds with Torah<br>
Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:20121217225022.GB16605@aishdas.org" target="_blank">20121217225022.GB16605@aishdas.org</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii<br><br>
On Mon, Dec 17, 2012 at 09:42:57AM -0500, Prof. Levine wrote:<br>
: From: <<a href="mailto:mgisser@nydesign.com" target="_blank">mgisser@nydesign.com</a>><br>
...<br>
:> Today's Judaism ignores God's words, and instead, favors <br>
:> incomprehensible and heretical notions found in man-made works like
<br>
:> Kabbala, Tanya, Breslov and other works that assume an identity
<br>
:> similar to Christian doctrines. When the priority of God's words is
<br>
:> rejected, this is no longer Judaism.<br>
...<br>
:> A reliable resource to assist in this need:
<<a href="http://www.mesora.org/" target="_blank">
http://www.mesora.org/</a>><br><br>
:> Rabbi Marshall Gisser<br><br>
: I cannot agree more with what Rabbi Gisser wrote about this
topic.<br><br>
How can we say that Qabbalah is "incomprehensible and
heretical"<br>
when we all rely on the work of Maran Bet Yosef? Are we to exclude
both<br>
Chassidus as well as the Gra and RCVolozhiner from the mesorah? The
Ari,<br>
the Maharal and the Ramchal?<br><br>
: IMO, this phenomenon is a result of what I term "The New
Religion."<br>
: The New Religion contains large doses of things that our
forefathers<br>
: never knew anything about and were never concerned with...<br><br>
So you don't say Barukh sheAmar and Yishtabach, because they
apparently<br>
post-date shas? Do you not wash your hands in specific patterns for<br>
neigl vasr and before hamotzi? What about Qabbalas Shabbos?<br><br>
There is a shift to segula'ism, to greater use of yahadus as a means<br>
to other things, thereby distorting it beyond recognition. So there<br>
is something out there I would agree is "new religion". I don't
think,<br>
though, this is it.<br><br>
<br>
And I presume from previous posts that if you saw Mesora.org, you
would<br>
not agree with his recommendation. As I wrote last July on Areivim,
R'<br>
Moshe ben Chaim (the primary voice on <a href="http://mesora.org" target="_blank">mesora.org</a>) et al are talmidim
of<br>
RIChait, and promote a view in which only textual mesorah has
validity,<br>
and accepted practice is not given any weight in pesaq.<br><br>
I don't think you would support the idea that we should follow the<br>
Bavli or the Rambam over the Maharil and Minhag Ashkenaz. It's a
very<br>
different view of mesorah than RSRH's.<br><br>
Also note R' Dayan Grunfeld's intro to Horeb, in which he has a
short<br>
section about how RSRH's symbols are in fact taken from his
knowledge<br>
of Qabbalah.<br><br>
<br><br>
I once wrote an email to Cantor Wolberg listing my misgivings with
RYC's<br>
hashkafah. This might be the right place to share that list:<br><br>
1- To RYC, *halakhah* comes from books. The fact that no one does
things<br>
the way he reads the book wouldn't stop him. No notion of following
a<br>
textually weaker opinion because of the authority of common
practice.<br><br>
2- RYC loves the Rambam, who is the only *rishon* who can be read as<br>
agreeing with #1. (Or not; I can see his intro to the Yad either way.)
The<br>
fact that RYC embraced Brisker *derekh *(as has most of the yeshiva
world<br>
from YU to the Mir) gives a central position to Rambam means that
his<br>
textual approach to *halakhah* does as well. Although it would be an<br>
overstatement to say that RYC is a Darda'i who *always* holds like
the<br>
Yad.<br><br>
3- He also has a Maimonidian philosophy, in which the ideal Jew is one
who<br>
has the most accurate and complete philosophical knowledge of G-d -- or
at<br>
least, of How the universe runs under His guidance and of what He
isn't.<br>
(Knowledge of what G-d is isn't really possible. Rather than the
more<br>
common answers among today's Jews (including O Jews) involving
ethical<br>
perfection and/or having a relationship *with* G-d.<br><br>
I had a discussion with RMBC when he wrote an article in Jewish
Times<br>
(an e-zine on Mesora.org) attacking my blog post in which I dismiss
the<br>
"Kuzari Proof". He can't handle the notion of belief based on
something<br>
other than philosophical proof. It took a while for him to realize
that<br>
I wasn't dismissing the notion that belief requires a basis, not a
leap<br>
of faith. He was so sure that there is only one way to justify
belief,<br>
it took a couple of weeks of discussion before I could get him to
see<br>
that the Kuzari actually is telling you to rely on something else.
As<br>
does Kant, and most philosophers -- secular, Jewish, and Orthodox
Jewish<br>
thinkers in particular -- since his "Copernican
Revolution".<br><br>
4- And thus rejects Qabbalah, and condemns any group that utilizes<br>
Qabbalah or any practice based in it. Red strings are idolatrous,<br>
*kaparos* with a chicken is offering a sacrifice outside the *Beis<br>
haMiqdash* (which the SA happens to agree to) and Chassidim are off
the<br>
path. Because *minhag* has no halachic weight in RYC's world, the
fact<br>
that most Jews have done *kaparos* for centuries, or that Chassidim<br>
have made *shlisl challos* the Shabbos after Pesach since the 1700s<br>
doesn't factor in to that assessment. (I would call that "peer
review"<br>
and demand a lot of proof before assuming I was right and they're
wrong.)<br><br>
5- Because RYC's Judaism is about Aristotelian Truth (rather than
paths<br>
to the goal Hashem set before us) there is only one right pesaq.<br><br>
(I should be clear, though, that I sent my eldest son to a HS run by<br>
a talmid of RYC on the grounds that I'm happier with a school that
is<br>
firmly founded on a hashkafah I personally am uncomfortable with
than<br>
one that doesn't impart an idealism altogether.)<br>
</blockquote></font></div>
<br>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><i>Shetir'u Batov</i>!<br>-Micha<br><br><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace">--</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace">Micha Berger You cannot propel yourself forward</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace">
<span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><a href="mailto:micha@aishdas.org" target="_blank">micha@aishdas.org</a> by patting yourself on the back.</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><span style="font-family:courier new,monospace"><a href="http://www.aishdas.org" target="_blank">http://www.aishdas.org</a> -Anonymous</span><br style="font-family:courier new,monospace">
<span style="font-family:courier new,monospace">Fax: (270) 514-1507</span></div><br>
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