The Old Testament view of Homosexuality.

 The Old Testament view of Homosexuality.. In short it is that there are three things that if one is given a choice "transgress this or we will kill you" that one must choose to be killed rather than do that sin. These three things are גילוי עריות שפיכות דמים ע''ז- the sexual sins of Leviticus 18 and 20, murder, and idolatry. The reason that this is relevant is that homosexual acts are in that category. This seems to me to be relevant to Catholics also from what I recall from my little bit of reading of Aquinas. In Aquinas natural law of the Old Testament still applies to Catholics.

[I was borrowing Aquinas's Summa from a Catholic Church and sadly enough had to give it back before I could do any more study of it than just a quickie review. But from what I recall Aquinas was making a distinction between Natural Law in the Old Testament and Ritual Law. And he was saying that Natural Law still applies to everyone.]
This view of Aquinas is close to R. Shimon ben Yochai that we go by the reason for the verse. דורשים טעמה דקרא. And according to the Rambam[Maimonides] we know the reasons for the verse and he gives them in the Guide for the Perplexed  and the reasons for the verse in the Guide are all Natural Law.



In the Catholic world there is outrage at the dismissal of a group of bishops that wanted to establish some ground rules. To me that seems like a good thing. Outrage at evil I think is healthy. Self criticism is a great thing.
Outrage at evil you can see when the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out because of their failure to hand over the murderers of a fellow's girl friend.  [The basic idea was they were protecting the murderers. So all Israel went to war with them]

Cosmological argument

The Cosmological argument

from Plato’s Laws, 893–96; Aristotle’s Physics (VIII, 4–6) and Metaphysics (XII, 1–6).
Also said later by Al Kindi so it is sometimes called the Kalam's Cosmological Argument.
See this paper that brings Plato's view-on pg 253.
People will also recognize this from the Obligations of the Heart.


This is in fact the same argument I have written at the top of this blog. But I usually go to Anselm's Ontological Argument which was proved by Godel.
But even the Cosmological argument I think of in a different way. That is I think of the the beginning of time and space and the laws of physics, not of the beginning of the physical universe.

An evolutionary psychologist

An evolutionary psychologist cannot be as smart as a good theoretical physicist, otherwise he would be one.

The problem with psychologists is not that they are not so smart as they think. It is rather that they are idiots.  


An "idiot" here I use here in the sense of someone of someone with an average I.Q. or lower that thinks they are a genius.

But to be fair this applies to just about anyone in the ludicrous "social sciences". Now there is an oxymoron  if I ever heard one

How to raise kids

However my feeling is that it is always best to start with basic texts--not watered down versions.

Honor of parents

Honor of parents goes on even when they have left this world. At least you can see that with Yonadav ben Recab. He was a friend of Yehu and he helped Yehu in wiping out the house of Ahab--which was at the time the son of Ahab and Ahaziahu the king of Judah. Ahazia was the grandson of Jehoshaphat.
So when Jeremiah came to his descendants and asked them to drink wine that was a long time after he was gone--and still they listening to their great grandfather rather than to  a prophet. --and they were praised for that and received an astounding promise from God for that.

So just for the record I wanted to state that my parents raised me in a more or less secular fashion. My brothers and I went to public school. [Though public school in those days was completely different than nowadays. Nowadays there is no question they would have found some private school at all and any cost.] Torah was considered very important in our family but not to make a public show out of. Nor to make money off of it.
The values of Torah were more or less summed up in these few simple instructions: Be a Mensch. [That is always to the right and moral thing.] Marry a Nice Jewish Girl.
Though Torah was encouraged, my decision to go to yeshiva was frowned upon, because they thought that yeshiva's even the best of them do really represent accurately what Torah is about. They thought in spite of the hype, that yeshivas are there to make money.

This leaves me now as it did then in a kind of quandary. For the great Litvak yeshivas I went to were clearly learning Torah for its own sake--that is Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. But I never succeeded in convincing them of that fact. And subsequent events showed that in fact they probably saw more clearly than me. Still it is hard for me to imagine how I ever could have gotten into authentic Torah with being at least for some time in an authentic Litvak Yeshiva.

"a wise man sees evil and hides", so my approach is just to avoid the religious world

In the Torah nothing really compares to the problem of idolatry. And the religious world is so full of that, that I avoid them to  a great extent. I still can not understand why the Gra is ignored in this regard. It is--after all- not as if he did not understand the issues.

Not just him, but they ignore Rav Shach also.

Since the verse says "a wise man sees evil and hides", so my approach is just to avoid the religious world because there is obviously no hope they will ever wake up.

sexual immorality. The sexual thing is mainly about things the Torah considers very evil are thought nowadays to be fine. And things that are actually perfectly OK in Torah are thought to be terrible sins.

NICE COMMENT ON A BLOG "All that really had to be said was that almost everyone at some point in their life is tempted to sexual immorality. It is a common temptation and a common sin. In fact, it fills the world with sinners. If it fills the world with sinners, then it must also fill Hell with the condemned. That form of sin is tremendously displeasing to God who, for the reason of impurity only and none other, destroyed cities in Old Testament times. Now that is some talk worthy of any traditional outlook."

 I would agree but also add that idolatry is also on the top of the list of things that God is unhappy with. And the religious world is full of it.

In any case just for information's sake, generally in the Old Testament: the forbidden relations in Leviticus are on a whole different plane than other kinds of relations. For example the prohibition of a mamzer bastard marrying into the congregation of God is a prohibition, not a כרת [being "cut off from one's people"] 

Moav and Ammon are along the same lines. Just prohibitions. Sex with an unmarried girl is required to marry the girl unless she or her father object. If they object, then he pays the normal amount of a Ketubah 200 zuz. 

Most of what people consider sinful in terms of sex is very different from the view of God. For example the menstruating woman problem is right in there in Leviticus 18 and 20 among the עריות. Homosexuality is also right there among the prohibitions one has to give up his life rather than transgress.

People also get confused about the betrothed unmarried girl in Deuteronomy and why is she any different than the unmarried girl in Exodus? The reason is this betrothal is not what people think nowadays. It is marriage. That is marriage always has two parts. קידושין ונישואין. Kidushin and Nisuin (or what is called Hupa). The Kidushin [betrothal] makes her already married, but they do not live together until Nisuin.
I hope this makes things clear. I ought to add that Rav Nahman brings problem of spilling seed in vain from mystic books and brings his own correction for that [to dip in the ocean -total immersion.] and ten psalms. But that is not a prohibition anywhere near the scale of things actually forbidden in the Torah.  The sexual thing is mainly about things the Torah considers very evil are thought nowadays to be fine. And things that are actually perfectly OK in Torah are thought to be terrible sins.  


[The so called sex change is not a change in sex. It is extending skin to make it seem something it is not or the opposite.]