Jacob sent Joseph to see his brothers from Hebron to Shechem. That is about a week of hiking at least! What were the brothers doing up in Shechem? And why send Joseph by himself halfway through the land of Canaan to get a news report?

Eliyahu and Elisha crossed the Jordan River before Eliyahu was taken up into Heaven. They were coming from Jericho. So they crossed into an area that was outside the original border or Israel as defined in the book of Numbers. But was that area occupied by the tribe of Reuben and Gad?

Who was the king of Israel in the time of Elisha? Yoram the son of Ahab? Or Yehu?

Jacob sent Joseph to see his brothers from Hebron to Shechem. That is about a week of hiking at least! What were the brothers doing up in Shechem? And why send Joseph by himself halfway through the land of Canaan to get a news report? And it is not as if the Canaanites were all the friendly by that time after what had happened in Shechem.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

It was a few years ago that I was sitting in Hebrew University and looking at micro films of old manuscripts of Rav Avraham Abulafia and I came across some positive statement  about Yeshua [Jesus]. That was on the day before Hanuka. I kind of froze in my seat because I was not sure what to think of that. I knew that the Rashba [An important Rishon] did not hold of Rav Abulafia at all. But I also knew that the Remak (Rav M. Cordovaro) and Rav Haim Vital were quoting him as legitimate. Also the Chida brings him (Rav Haim David Azulai). It got to be the night of Hanuka and I decided to go with Rav Abulafia even though I knew that would send me on a trajectory that was far from what I had been doing until then.

Why did I decide that? because I figured the Rashba was more of an expert in his particular field of Gemara, while Rav Abulafia was more of an expert in his area.

[Besides that I had been learning the books of Rav Isaac Luria and  Rav Nahman of Breslov already for a few years so I anyway had a kind of mental framework in which it is possible to understand the importance of true tzadikim. I also had been looking at the book of Rav Haim Vital in which the root souls of lots of different tzadikm is brought. That is the book where the Ari was explaining to Rav Haim Vital that the soul of Rav Haim Vital was from Emanation. [Most souls are from Creation]. So I already understood that there can be souls that stem from Emanation.]


I ought to mention that in the meantime someone from Mea Shearim came to Hebrew U. and put all the books of Rav Abulafia into readable script and printed them and you can even buy them in regular Hebrew.

Appendix

[1] Just for some background --the Rashba was a Rishon that had serious issues with Rav Abulafia. But even before I was looking at the manuscripts I was aware of the Rav Haim David Azulai who stood up for Rav Abulafia and that gave a lot of support in that direction. If the Rashba would be expressing an opinion about some passage in the Talmud, that would be more important. But in terms of his opinion about Rav Abulafia, that seems to me to be out of his range of expertise.]

[2] The idea of certain souls being from Emanation is brought down even before the Ari. However Rav Isaac Luria -the Ari- goes into a lot more detail than you can find anywhere else. So there is nothing particularly damming about saying a great tzadik has a soul that is from Emanation (i.e. Divine).

Jordan Peterson

Constellations of belief

Constellations of belief is why people will hold to a given belief even when it goes against common sense--because it is connected with a group he wants to be  apart of or because it is part of a belief system that does have elements of truth.

This is how people fall into evil, but it is also how people fall into good. The reason is there is "out there" lots of constellations of belief. And in no given place is "all truth". That gives a wide range of free will.

In this statement I am trying to give a reason for people holding to things that do not seem to make a lot of sense like the Trinity--because of other things that go along with it like the Golden Rule.
But as Dr Michael Huemer pointed out it is often group identity that determines people's beliefs.

I have had a hard time with this exact subject. And I have no golden rule such as common sense or Reason as to how to judge in this area.
However I do have my own set of rules that I try to hold to in terms of belief systems and rules of conduct. The top one is tell the truth no matter what the consequences are [unless it is a case that can cause harm to others]. I believe that telling the truth always gives me a certain degree of common sense by which then I can tell what world view systems make more sense.

As for world view issues I missed the anti reason movement in the West almost totally. I found rational philosophy to make sense and almost never even saw the 20th century post modern stuff until I already had been learning Plato and Spinoza in High school and elementary school.
But pure Rational philosophy almost has to lead to Kant. It is not just problems in Spinoza himself but also the points raised by Berkeley and Hume. Almost by force one is lead to Kant to find some middle ground. But does that then lead to Hegel as a lot of people thought? I am not sure. To me it seems Hegel is good for Metaphysics and Leonard Nelson is good for epistemology.


 People that are not happy with Hegel I think come from  legitimate complaints about German Nationalism which they think was inspired by Hegel or from complaints about Communism.
But even though Communism as a theory is clearly wrong I can see how it was needed to bring peace and stability to the Russian Empire. You really can not see this unless you have been in former republics of the USSR and see how things really are. If you would be there you would understand what the czars and the USSR were facing. It is nothing like ruling mild mannered white Anglo Saxon Protestants!

[I should add that Kelley Ross also has a Metaphysical approach that is different than Hegel, which is as important as the whole Kant Fries School. But to me it just does not look all that different than Hegel's Metaphysics.]

finding truth in a given world view system

There is a certain n point when you give up finding truth in a given world view system. This is like a person with great expertise in tax laws who has worked for years as a lawyer and a tax accountant.  Then he hears about a politician who has come to town that is going to give  a speech about taxes. So he goes to listen. He expects to hear some relevant  argument about the local tax cuts to conservation groups that  have been harassing the logging industry or such similar themes. But he hears nothing of the sort. All the politician talks about is how he is going to lower taxes and increase spending for teachers and health care etc,. That is nothing related to the issues. Then he goes into the book the politician has written and also finds nothing. So at some point he decides that politician has nothing to say that is relevant to tax issues.

That is like me when I a trying to make sense out of the big world I live in and I hear some promises of any given world view. Then I find out they have nothing to say about important matters.

One reason I think I was particularly attracted to Rav Nahman's of Breslov lessons is that I saw there real insights and advice as to human problems which I did not see in Musar. [Though Shar yashuv in Far Rockaway and the Mir in NY were for me amazing places to learn Talmud, I still found myself feeling empty until I found the books of Rav Nahman.]

Hegel and McTaggart for Metaphysics and Leonard Nelson for "How do we know stuff?" ( i.e Epistemology)

The blogger Mother in Israel mentioned once on her blog about Hegel. I was pretty much against Hegel at the time since I had been learning the Kant Friesian School of Dr Kelley Ross . But for some reason that I have forgotten I started looking at Hegel again. [My first time had been in NY when I borrowed the Cambridge Companion to Hegel].

It is a lot easier to understand Hegel (I must say) if you look at McTaggart. The is an important point that McTaggart makes in his commentary on the Greater Logic right away in the very beginning.It is that The Dialectic is not meant  to derive all laws of Physics by pure Logic. There is an interplay between empirical evidence of Reason.


[Dr Ross expands on the format of the Kant Fries School of Leonard Nelson. Nelson was mainly against the Neo Kant School and had little to say about Hegel.]

To me it seems tragic that Neslon and Hegel are not learned much. It terms of making sense of the world they have much to offer.

What were the sacrifices that Hezekiah [in Chronicles] brought after he cleaned the Temple?

What were the sacrifices that Hezekiah [in Chronicles] brought after he cleaned the Temple? Some might have been burnt offerings. The אלים [sheep over a year old] may have been peace offerings. (They could not have been burnt offerings since if they are sheep they need to be less than a year old.) But what were the sin offerings that he brought of the Tribe of Judah? From what I recall that must have been for just the majority of the tribe of Judah. I mean to say that a sin offering for the whole congregation I seem to recall can be for a single tribe.
[They certainly were not for individuals because they were seven male goats. The sin offering for an individual has to be a female goat.]