Who is "Akum" עכו''ם עובד כוכבים ומזלות [idolater]

 Who is "Akum" עכו''ם עובד כוכבים ומזלות [idolater]? This is an argument among rishonim. The Rambam (as is well known) holds Christians are in that category. To Tosphot in Tractate Avida Zara, they are not because "shituf" ["joining" with God ] is not idolatry. This comes up because this argument is often ignored and people think the Rambam is the only opinion. That is just not so.

However the particular Tosphot that deals with this issue seems to have about three separate reason for the fact that Christians are not idolaters. [But besides his depending on that Gemara itself that Shituf is not idolatry, I forgot the other reasons.]

I might add here that Aquinas spent a good deal of effort in defining and defending the idea of Divine simplicity. He shows that according to the Torah, God is "simple" which means not a composite. And he shows that that does work within his context.  Divine simplicity is central to Torah faith as no one in the Middle Ages disagreed with.

[Divine simplicity was a major issue in the middle ages and in fact probably was the reason that the Platonic model of Emanation was dropped and the Aristotelean model was adopted.]

 

 In the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides there is a passage about revolutions. It is very accurate and gives one the chills. The idea is that  it brings out the worst in people.

[Though the War of Independence is called "revolution," it was to preserve the structure that had been in place from before Parliament started treating the colonies as serfs.]

A head covering, there is no requirement of such a thing except for during the public reading of Torah as brought in Mesechet Sofrim.

 The religious clothing has always seemed a little "off " to me. For one thing, you are not supposed to advertise how religious you are. מה השם אלוהיך שואל ממך ... והצנע לכת עם אלוהיך

"What does the Lord your God ask from you ... and to walk modesty with your God".

The skull cap itself has seemed to me to be even worse. There is no record of Jews wearing such a thing until long after it was the custom of popes and bishops. [Take a look at all paintings and drawings of Jews from the Middle Ages. There is not one skull cap.]

If the issue is a head covering, there is no requirement of such a thing except for during the public reading of Torah as brought in Mesechet Sofrim [not from the Mishna but one of the books on halacha from chazal/the sages.  The Taz wants to add that not wearing a head covering is the custom of gentiles. That is odd, since the skull cap itself is the custom of popes and bishops. So the Kipa itself is minhag hagoyim (custom of the gentiles). 

יצחק קדורי Rav Isaac Kaduri one of the most well respected mystics in Israel left a not that was not to be opened until after he died. It was opened and said the name of the true messiah is Yeshua [the well known name of Jesus in Hebrew]. It was ignored as you can imagine. Still, it does lend a degree of credibility to Rav Avraham Abulafia [a "mekubal" mystic from the Middle Ages] who wrote that Jesus is the messiah son of Joseph that is mentioned in the end of the Talmud tractate of Suka [Also this subject is brought up in Kol HaTor of the Gra and the New Tikunim  of the Ramchal.]

 Leftists used to hold up Venezuela as the best example of Socialism. They actually wrote that the USA needs to learn how to run a country from Venezuela. 

Now if you really want to know about the results of Socialism take  look at this:

The Neo Kantian

The Neo Kantian schools of thought  were either about justifying science or culture which clearly were the last things on Kant's mind. Rather the question of Kant and of Metaphysics in general is "What is it all about?"

I might offer here a suggestion--that had he known about Leonard Nelson,[friesian.com] he might have seen the exact kind of development of Kant that he was seeking. [With Leonard Nelson the answer to How is synthetic a priori possible? The answer is by means of immediate non intuitive knowledge--i.e.  faith.]

I certainly did. For faith needs a certain amount of justification. Those that think they are supporting faith by divorcing it from reason, are undermining real faith and fall and bring others into lying faiths. 

[As Brand Blanshard wrote in a similar vein: "Now the result of this line of defense [of faith and morality by means of divorcing faith from reason] is not really to save morality, but to throw all morality into confusion." 

So as all Rishonim [sought for a synthesis of faith and reason] I see in Leonard Nelson a way forward. 

x39  E Flat Major  x39 midi   x39 nwc 

x40 E Flat Major  same piece in midi same piece in nwc