Spiritual Radioactivity
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Philosophy, Science and Nature, Spirituality on June 18, 2018
Do you think spiritual impurity is hocus-pocus?
Would you walk into a radioactive hot zone just because you can’t see or smell radiation?
Click to watch this 5-minute primer on the nature of purity and impurity, and why it’s still relevant in our times.
Sefiras HaOmer: The Calculus of Becoming Fully Human
Posted by Yonason Goldson in History, Holidays, Philosophy, Spirituality on April 17, 2018
Every year, we endeavor to re-experience the spiritual transformation the Jewish people underwent 3330 years ago from the moment they left Egypt to the moment they received the Torah at Sinai. Enjoy these insights:
Tu B’Shevat: The Door into Summer
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Holidays, Philosophy, Science and Nature, Spirituality on January 29, 2018
The Jewish holiday of Tu B’Shevat allows us to think deeply about how the obstacles we face today will shape the benefits we will enjoy tomorrow.
Tanor shel Achnai
Posted by Yonason Goldson in History, Philosophy, Spirituality, Uncategorized on November 7, 2017
One of the most fascinating and perplexing episodes in talmudic literature is the fierce debate between Rabbi Eliezer and the sages over an apparently arcane point of Jewish law.
Thank you to Rabbi Yaakov Berkowitz of the St. Louis Kollel for inviting me to contribute to the Amud Yomi program with this discussion.
Unmasking Frum Women
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Culture, Politics on March 31, 2017
My unpublished letter to Mishpacha Magazine, 12 November 2016:
Dear Editors,
I found interesting the juxtaposition between last week’s letters regarding Hillary Clinton’s cover picture and Rabbi Grylak’s weekly insights into the parsha. His essay began with the introduction, “From age three, Avraham was asking questions, challenging the pervading belief system of the time.”
So I’d like to ask some questions of my own. If I can sit across from a woman at the Shabbos table, if I can pass a woman in the grocery store aisle, if I can survive spiritually crossing paths with the secular women who live in my neighborhood or work in my office, why is my neshoma so profoundly threatened by a picture of a modestly attired woman in a magazine?
And, assuming that there is indeed a reasonable answer, then what about this: is it not possible — given the mores of the modern world — that some young women and girls in our communities might interpret the exclusion of feminine images from Torah publications as symptomatic of a society that degrades the value and contribution of women, and who therein find a pretext to reject normative hashkofah? If so, is the gain worth the loss?
I’m no gadol, so these are not my questions to answer. But I’m reminded of what Rav Nota Schiller is fond of saying, that the Torah allows the Jews to change enough to stay the same.
It’s worth at least contemplating which changes will ultimately benefit Klal Yisroel in the future even as we fiercely defend the traditions of the past.
Yonason Goldson
Click here to see what prominent rabbinic figures have to say on the issue.
Don’t count down — count up
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Holidays, Philosophy on May 6, 2016
Between Passover and the festival of Shavuos (Pentacost, celebrating the Almighty’s revelation at Sinai), tradition calls for every Jew to count the days and the weeks connecting the freedom of the exodus from Egypt with the responsible application of that freedom.
These seven weeks are a time filled with opportunity for personal growth, beginning with the awareness that little changes can add up to extraordinary transformation.
Tu B’Shevat: The Roots of Wisdom
Posted by Yonason Goldson in Ethics of Fathers, Holidays, Philosophy, Spirituality on January 25, 2016
From Celestial Navigation, a publication of Block Yeshiva
[Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah] used to say: Anyone whose wisdom exceeds his good deeds – to what is he similar? To a tree whose branches are many and whose roots are few; then the wind will come and uproot it and turn it over. As it is said: “And he will be like a lonely tree in a wasteland that will not see when good comes. It will dwell on parched soil in the desert, on a salted land, uninhabited” (Yirmyahu 17:6). But one whose deeds exceed his wisdom — to what is he similar? To a tree whose branches are few and whose roots are many; even if all the winds in the world come and blow against it, they will not move it from its place. As it is said: “And he shall be like a tree planted by the water spreading its roots toward the stream, and it will not notice when heat comes. Its leaves will be fresh, in a year of drought it will not worry, and it shall not cease yielding fruit” (ibid., 17:8).
Pirkei Avos 3:22
On the surface, Rabbi Elazar’s allegory appears easy to understand. Scholarship alone is not enough; only when wisdom influences action and produces virtue will it endure.
On closer examination, however, the image of a tree raises many questions. If wisdom is the source of action, why does Rabbi Elazar not compare wisdom to the roots and good deeds to the branches? Just as roots draw sustenance from the earth to nourish the tree, similarly the roots in the allegory should represent the wisdom that fosters action.
Moreover, granted that wisdom is not enough, and that without good deeds a person is like a tree without adequate support, why describe a tree with few branches in the second part of the allegory? If a person has many good deeds, why do the “branches” of his wisdom still have to be “few”?
And what is the point of mentioning the wind at all? Would it not have been simpler to describe a tree so unstable that it is in danger of toppling under its own weight, regardless of external forces?
Finally, why does Rabbi Elazar prove his lesson with verses describing land that is either parched or abundantly watered? Since the tree has no control over its environment, how are these verses relevant to his illustration?
THE ROAD OF GOOD INTENTIONS
Rabbi Abraham Twersky writes that when he was a boy, a visiting rabbi asked him the following question: Since the Torah equates thought with action, then thinking of a question should be the same as actually speaking it. “If so,” concluded the rabbi, “you should be able to answer the question I am thinking at this moment.”
The young Abraham Twersky offered the only reply that seemed to make sense: “I am thinking of the answer,” he said.
The Torah’s equation of thought and deed informs us that thoughts are the first step toward actions and that actions are imperfect without sincere intent. Nevertheless, thoughts alone are not enough: although wisdom is indisputably the source of action, it is action that secures and preserves our wisdom. In the famous words of the Sefer HaChinuch, “man is drawn according to his deeds; his heart and all his thoughts follow inevitably after his actions, whether for good or for bad.”[1]
Unless properly channeled, wisdom comes to nothing; even worse, it may become twisted and corrupted through rationalization.
Recent Comments