Orthoprax

Paul Davies' God

2010-06-09T14:12:00.004-04:00

"[A] deistic god, a sort of god of the physicist, a god of somebody like Paul Davies, who devised the laws of physics, god the mathematician, god who put together the cosmos in the first place and then sat back and watched everything happen…one could make a reasonably respectable case for that." - Richard Dawkins (@3:25)

What Happened Before the Big Bang?

By Paul Davies

It is often said that science cannot prove the existence of God. Yet science does have value in theological debate because it gives us new concepts that sometimes make popular notions of God untenable. One of these concerns the nature of time.

Many people envisage God as a sort of cosmic magician who existed for all eternity and then, at some moment in the past, created the universe in a gigantic supernatural act. Unfortunately, this scenario raises some awkward questions. What was God doing before he created the universe? If God is a perfect, unchanging being, what prompted him to act then rather than sooner?

The fifth-century theologian St. Augustine neatly solved the problem by proclaiming that the world was made with time and not in time. In other words, time itself is part of God's creation.

To make sense of Augustine's concept, it is necessary to place God outside of time altogether, and the notion of a timeless Deity became official church doctrine. However, it is not without its own difficulties. How can a timeless God be involved with temporal events in the universe, such as entering into human history through the Incarnation?

Today, religious people like to identify the creation with the Big Bang of scientific cosmology. So what can we say about the nature of time in the scientific picture?

Albert Einstein showed us that time and space are part of the physical world, just as much as matter and energy. Indeed, time can be manipulated in the laboratory. Dramatic time warps occur, for example, when subatomic particles are accelerated to near the speed of light. Black holes stretch time by an infinite amount. It is therefore wrong to think of time as simply "there," as a universal, eternal backdrop to existence. So a complete theory of the universe needs to explain not only how matter and energy came to exist, it must also explain the origin of time.

Happily, Einstein's theory of relativity is up to the job. It predicts a so-called "singularity" at which time abruptly starts. In the standard Big Bang scenario, time and space come into being spontaneously at such a singularity, along with matter.

People often ask, What happened before the Big Bang? The answer is, Nothing.

By this, I do not mean that there was a state of nothingness, pregnant with creative power. There was nothing before the Big Bang because there was no such epoch as "before." As Stephen Hawking has remarked, asking what happened before the Big Bang is rather like asking what lies north of the North Pole. The answer, once again, is nothing, not because there exists a mysterious Land of Nothing there but because there is no such place as north of the North Pole. Similarly, there is no such time as "before the Big Bang."

Of course, one can still ask why a universe popped into existence this way. Cosmologists believe the answer lies with the weird properties of quantum mechanics, a topic beyond the scope of this essay.

We can now see that Augustine was right, and popular religion wrong, to envisage God as a superbeing dwelling within the stream of time prior to the creation. Professional theologians acknowledge this. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) does not mean God pushing a metaphysical button and making a Big Bang, then sitting back to watch the action. It means God sustaining the existence of the universe, and its laws, at all times, from a location outside of space and time.

Can science give any credibility to such a notion? Mostly, scientists either are atheists or keep God in a separate mental compartment. However, there is a strong parallel in the scientific concept of the laws of nature. Like the theologians' God, these laws enjoy an abstract, timeless existence and are capable of bringing the universe into being from nothing. But where do they come from? And why do these laws exist rather than some different set?

Science is based on the assumption that the universe is thoroughly rational and logical at all levels. Miracles are not allowed. This implies that there should be reasons for the particular laws of nature that regulate the physical universe. Atheists claim that the laws exist reasonlessly and that the universe is ultimately absurd. As a scientist, I find this hard to accept. There must be an unchanging rational ground in which the logical, orderly nature of the universe is rooted. Is this rational ground like the timeless God of Augustine? Perhaps it is. But in any case, the law-like basis of the universe seems a more fruitful place for a dialogue between science and theology than focusing on the origin of the universe and the discredited notion of what happened before the Big Bang.

Of Interest...

2010-04-29T12:01:00.003-04:00

"Question: Is a third or fourth year medical student considered a full-fledged physician for halachic purposes?

Answer: A medical student has the same halachic coverage as a house staff physician or attending physician.

Comment: Although the student has no legal responsibility for patient care, and although he may not have adequate knowledge to exercise mature medical judgment, his aid is often necessary and nearly always beneficial. Time is saved by the senior physician because additional hands are available. The halacha does not distinguish between medical student, clinical clerk, resident, and attending physician, or even layman, insofar as all contribute to the total patient care. The obligation to aid a dangerously ill patient falls not only on the graduate physician but on anyone able to and asked to render assistance. Included in this obligation are first- and second-year medical students and certainly third- and fourth-year students who possess considerable medical knowledge and are essential members of the diagnostic and therapeutic team... [A] medical student has the same halachic coverage as the graduate physician, including laws pertaining to the Sabbath and Yom Tov."

From: "Practical Medical Halachah" by Dr. Fred Rosner and Rabbi Moshe D. Tendler, 1997, page 15.

The Mandan

2010-03-21T12:19:00.007-04:00

"The Mandans said that there were four stories under the earth and four stories above; before the flood they lived in a village under the earth near a lake, and a grape-vine grew down through, letting the light into the underworld. They wanted to come up and sent the mouse, badger, a strange, mythical animal and a deer to dig out a hole. Then they climbed out by the grapevine till half were on earth and a very corpulent woman broke the vine. A flood came when they were first coming out and the first tribe (Tattooed Faces) perished almost wholly. All this happened near a lake to the east. If they are good the Mandans go back to this old village under ground when they die. They now found themselves on the surface of the earth. The people were led by a chief and they kept walking till they reached the Missouri at the mouth of the White River. They ascended it to the Moreau, here they found enemies in the Cheyenne, and they went to war and killed and scalped for the first time. The great chief who led them out of the earth¹ together with his sister and brother taught them to make shields, and then he divided them into bands and led them against the Cheyenne. After a long struggle he performed a miracle by which the enemy were nearly all slain."
-The Mandans: a study of their culture, archaeology and language, Volume 3 By George Francis Will, Herbert Joseph Spinden, page 140

....

"The Mandans (people of the pheasants) were the first people created in the world², and they originally lived inside of the earth; they raised many vines, and one of them had grown up through a hole in the earth overhead, and one of their young men climbed up it until he came out on top of the ground, on the bank of the river, where the Mandan village stands. He looked around, and admired the beautiful country and prairies about him—saw many buffaloes—killed one with his bow and arrows, and found that its meat was good to eat. He returned and related what he had seen, when a number of others went up the vine with him. and witnesseth the same things. Amongst those who went up, were two very pretty young women, who were favorites with the chiefs, because they were virgins, and amongst those who were trying to get up, was a very large and fat woman, who was ordered by the chiefs not to go up, but whose curiosity led her to try it as soon as she got a secret opportunity, when there was no one present. When she got part of the way up, the vine broke under the great weight of her body and let her down. She was very much hurt by the fall, but did not die. The Mandans were very sorry about this, and she was disgraced for being the cause of a very great calamity, which she had brought upon them, and which could never be averted, for no more could ever ascend, nor could those descend who had got up;. but they build the Mandan village, where it formerly stood, a great ways below on the river; and the remainder of the people live under ground to this day.'" -
-< -->South Dakota historical collections, Volume 4 By South Dakota State Historical Society, South Dakota. Dept. of History, page 521

....

"The Numangkake [aka Mandan] now resolved to go up. The great chief with his medicine and his schischikue in his hand, went first. They climbed up, one after another by the aid of a branch of a vine; and when exactly half their number had ascended, and a corpulent woman was half way up the vine, it broke, and the remainder of the nation fell to the ground. This happened in the neighborhood of the sea shore. Those who had reached the surface went on till they came to the Missouri, which they reached at White Earth river. They then proceeded up the Missouri to Moreau's river. At that time they knew nothing of enemies. Once, when a Mandan woman was scraping a hide, a Cheyenne Indian came and killed her. The Mandans followed the traces of this new enemy till they came to a certain river, where they all turned back with the exception of two, the husband and the brother of the woman who was killed. These two men went on till they discovered the enemy, killed one of them and took his scalp with them. Before they got back to their village they found some white clay which they had never seen before, and took a portion of it with them. When they came to their great chief, the first man who had climbed up the vine, and whose skull and schischikue they still preserve, as a relic, in the medicine bag of the nation, they gave him the white clay, with which he marked some lines on his schischikue. The name of this chief was, at first, Mihti-Pihka (the smoke of the village), but when he ascended to the surface of the earth he called himself the Mihti-Shi (the robe with the beautiful hair). When he had received the clay and the scalp, he commanded all his people to shoot buffalos, but only bulls, and to make shields of the thickest part of the hide, which they did. When this was done, they asked the chief what were his next commandments. To which he replied, 'Paint a drooping sunflower on this shield' (as a sort of medicine or amulet), on which the sister of the chief said, 'You are fools; paint a bean on it; for what is smoother than a bean to ward off the arrows.'

"The chief now introduced the establishment of the bands or unions, and founded first that of 'the foolish dogs.' He made four caps of crows' feathers, and commissioned the Mandans to make a number of similar ones. He then gave them the war pipe and song, and exhorted them to be always valiant and cheerful, and never to retreat before the point of the arrow. He also gave them the strips of red cloth which hang down behind, and added that, if they would follow his directions, they would always be esteemed as brave and worthy men. The chief then made two of the bent sticks covered with otter skins, and gave them the kanakara-kachka. and then two others adorned with raven's feathers^ which he also presented to them. The first represent the sunflower, and the latter the maize. 'These badges,' said he, 'you are to carry before you when you go against the enemy; plant them in the ground, and fight to the last man, that is to say, never abandon them.' He next founded the band of 'the little foolish dogs,' and assembled many young men. whom he ordered to paint their faces of a black color, and gave them a song of their own, with the war whoop at the end. and said he would call them the 'black-birds.' He afterwards went to war with his people against the Cheyennes. They reached the enemy and laid all their robes in a heap together. The chief wore a cap of lynx skin, and had his medicine pipe on his arm. He did not join in the action, but sat apart on the ground during the whole time that it lasted. They fought almost the whole day, drove the enemy into their village, and were then repulsed, which happened three or four times, and one of the Numangkake was killed. When the chief was informed of this, he ordered them to go to the river and bring a young poplar with large leaves, which he planted in the ground near to the enemy, and challenged the Cheyennes to attack him; but they answered, they would wait for his attack. As he would not commence the combat, the enemy shot at him, but their arrows only grazed his arm and robe. He then held up the poplar, which suddenly shot up to a colossal size, was thrown, by a violent storm which arose, among the enemies, crushed many of them, and obliged the Cheyennes to retreat across the Missouri."

-South Dakota historical collections, Volume 4 By South Dakota State Historical Society, South Dakota. Dept. of History, page 569

1. Emphasized to demonstrate that the climbing up to the surface was not something that happened "a long, long time ago" but in the understood real history and recent past of the people as the same chief who lead them out of the ground, also lead them on the surface and lead them against their enemies.

2. Created chronologically first, but not as ancestors to all mankind. Other people came to be via separate, special creations. Quote: "The cattle were sent back to the east, where Lone Man also created white people. Lone Man created more humans, who grew and flourished. The first people he created were the Mandan." - link.

This is the Mandan nation's story of how they came from their subterranean world beneath the Earth via a vine (ala Jack and the Beanstalk) where they had lived for a very long period of time. It is their origin on the surface and the start of their history along the Missouri River. They have had this national tradition told orally for their entire known history. Further, along with their momentous origins, they get into quick conflict with the Cheyennes - who they manage to defeat by way of a miraculous poplar - another national tradition.

As Rabbi Gottlieb says, "Any national miracle that would create a national tradition is unforgettable. So, if a nation believes in such a miracle, we have sufficient reason to accept that belief as true." -link

Or do we?

From the Mail Bin

2010-02-21T11:07:00.003-05:00

"I've been reading your blogs and i find them quite intriguing. I agree with u regarding the many myth and fable like stories in the Bible. The part that i find more difficult is that if the Torah was not given as a Divine Revelation then how did we get such a complex and vast Talmudic system. I mean the laws in the Talmud seem so far fetched and abstract that its difficult to believe that God didnt have some part of it. I dont thing there is any other man made system of laws that is as vast and complex as the Talmud. what r your thoughts?"

Whether God had a part in it or not is not the question, since most would agree that the Talmud was composed l'shem shamayim and with God in mind. The question is whether Talmudic law requires supernatural intervention to explain itself. I don't believe it does. I don't know if you've studied the Talmud but it's essentially an effort to justify and further clarify the rules of the Mishna from the text of the Torah with proof texts, allusions and the like.

Many times these proof texts work very well and are indeed impressive and clever, but that should be expected since the Mishna itself was composed with the Torah in mind. Other times though the efforts of the Amoraim (the Talmudic scholars) seem pretty strained and they have to go through several iterations of hair-splitting or "this-case-is-an-exception-because..." in order to come to some conclusion when an apparent contradiction arises. And there are also plenty of times when the Talmudic discussion ends in "Taiku" - where they can figure out no resolution.

Add in the fact that the Talmud itself occasionally cites natural "facts" that are now known to be false to make arguments or simply as side discussion, complements the conclusion that it is a great but still an eminently human work.

If you're looking for another vast and complex system of laws, I'd refer you to the United States' tax code. For comparison, the Talmud is written formally on less than 6000 pages, while the tax code is now more than ~~16,000~~, 70,000.

Medicare for All = Healthcare for None

2009-09-29T02:57:00.002-04:00

Doctors Are Opting Out of Medicare

By JULIE CONNELLY

EARLY this year, Barbara Plumb, a freelance editor and writer in New York who is on Medicare, received a disturbing letter. Her gynecologist informed her that she was opting out of Medicare. When Ms. Plumb asked her primary-care doctor to recommend another gynecologist who took Medicare, the doctor responded that she didn’t know any — and that if Ms. Plumb found one she liked, could she call and tell her the name?
...
Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.
...
Of the 93 internists affiliated with New York-Presbyterian Hospital, for example, only 37 accept Medicare, according to the hospital’s Web site.

Two trends are converging: there is a shortage of internists nationally — the American College of Physicians, the organization for internists, estimates that by 2025 there will be 35,000 to 45,000 fewer than the population needs — and internists are increasingly unwilling to accept new Medicare patients.

In a June 2008 report, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent federal panel that advises Congress on Medicare, said that 29 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries it surveyed who were looking for a primary care doctor had a problem finding one to treat them, up from 24 percent the year before. And a 2008 survey by the Texas Medical Association found that while 58 percent of the state’s doctors took new Medicare patients, only 38 percent of primary care doctors did.

29 percent of Medicare recipients can't find a physician who is willing to take them as patients. That's huge. How high would that number go if most of the country became Medicare or Medicare-like recipients? How high will this number go if the federal government's scheduled 21% cut in Medicare payments to physicans comes real (on January 1st, 2010)?

Yeah, give everyone free coverage, but don't be surprised when you can't find anyone willing to accept it.

Just Brilliant: "A Doctor's Plan for Legal Industry Reform"

2009-09-06T02:18:00.001-04:00

By RICHARD B. RAFAL

Since we are moving toward socialism with ObamaCare, the time has come to do the same with other professions—especially lawyers. Physician committees can decide whether lawyers are necessary in any given situation.

At a town-hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H., last month, our uninformed lawyer in chief suggested that we physicians would rather chop off a foot than manage diabetes since we would make more money doing surgery. Then President Obama compounded his attack by claiming a doctor's reimbursement is between "$30,000" and "$50,000" for such amputations! (Actually, such surgery costs only about $1,500.)

Physicians have never been so insulted. Because of these affronts, I will gladly volunteer for the important duty of controlling and regulating lawyers. Since most of what lawyers do is repetitive boilerplate or pushing paper, physicians would have no problem dictating what is appropriate for attorneys. We physicians know much more about legal practice than lawyers do about medicine.
Following are highlights of a proposed bill authorizing the dismantling of the current framework of law practice and instituting socialized legal care:

• Contingency fees will be discouraged, and eventually outlawed, over a five-year period. This will put legal rewards back into the pockets of the deserving—the public and the aggrieved parties. Slick lawyers taking their "cut" smacks of a bookie operation. Attorneys will be permitted to keep up to 3% in contingency cases, the remainder going into a pool for poor people.

• Legal "DRGs." Each potential legal situation will be assigned a relative value, and charges limited to this amount. Program participation and acceptance of this amount is mandatory, regardless of the number of hours spent on the matter. Government schedules of flat fees for each service, analogous to medicine's Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), will be issued. For example, any divorce will have a set fee of, say, $1,000, regardless of its simplicity or complexity. This will eliminate shady hourly billing. Niggling fees such as $2 per page photocopied or faxed would disappear. Who else nickels-and-dimes you while at the same time charging hundreds of dollars per hour? I'm surprised lawyers don't tack shipping and handling onto their bills.

• Legal "death panels." Over 75? You will not be entitled to legal care for any matter. Why waste money on those who are only going to die soon? We can decrease utilization, save money and unclog the courts simultaneously. Grandma, you're on your own.

• Ration legal care. One may need to wait months to consult an attorney. Despite a perceived legal need, physician review panels or government bureaucrats may deem advice unnecessary. Possibly one may not get representation before court dates or deadlines. But that' s tough: What do you want for "free"?

• Physician controlled legal review. This is potentially the most exciting reform, with doctors leading committees for determining the necessity of all legal procedures and the fairness of attorney fees. What a wonderful way for doctors to get even with the sharks attempting to eviscerate the practice of medicine.

• Discourage/eliminate specialization. Legal specialists with extra training and experience charge more money, contributing to increased costs of legal care, making it unaffordable for many. This reform will guarantee a selection of mediocre, unmotivated attorneys but should help slow rising legal costs. Big shot under indictment? Classified National Archives documents down your pants? Sitting president defending against impeachment? Have FBI agents found $90,000 in your freezer? Too bad. Under reform you too may have to go to the government legal shop for advice.

• Electronic legal records. We should enter the digital age and computerize and centralize legal records nationwide. All files must be in a standard, preferably inconvenient, format and must be available to government agencies. A single database of judgments, court records, client files, etc. will decrease legal expenses. Anyone with Internet access will be able to search the database, eliminating unjustifiable fees charged by law firms for supposedly proprietary information, while fostering transparency. It will enable consumers to dump their clunker attorneys and transfer records easily.

• Ban legal advertisements. Catchy phone numbers such as 1-800-LAWYERS would be seized by the government and repurposed for reporting unscrupulous attorneys.

• New government oversight. Government overhead to manage the legal system will include a cabinet secretary, commissioners, ombudsmen, auditors, assistants, czars and departments.

• Collect data about the supply of and demand for attorneys.Create a commission to study the diversity and geographic distribution of attorneys, with power to stipulate and enforce corrective actions to right imbalances. The more bureaucracy the better. One can never have too many eyes watching these sleazy sneaks.

• Lawyer Reduction Act (H.R. -3200). A self-explanatory bill that not only decreases the number of law students, but also arbitrarily removes 3,200 attorneys from practice each year. Textbook addition by subtraction.

Enthusiastically embracing the above legal changes can serve as a "teachable moment" and will go a long way toward giving the lawyers who run Congress a taste of their own medicine.

Dr. Rafal is a radiologist in New York City.

Moral Objectivity, Revisited

2009-09-02T04:52:00.003-04:00

Excellent post found here that mirrors much of my thinking on ethical objectivity, but written much more clearly and comprehensively than anything I've ever written on the subject.

Common human prosperity and wellbeing are the goals of ethics and true, objective ethical rules are those that lead to their apex. We can analyze which ethical rules we use are closer or further away from the "true objective rules" by comparing their effects on societies on Earth, historical comparisons, logical critiques for internal consistency and the like, and reasoned discourse.

The only assumptions here are that human prosperity and wellbeing ought to be universally valued and that we have common understanding of these terms to build a consensus of action. These are not really much of leaps, especially as compared to the deontological set of rules assumed wholesale to be objectively correct by various moral Absolutists. And this way of thinking escapes the sinkhole of moral relativism where moral rules are proposed and defended by nothing more than emotion and whim.

Yet Another Reason Why Nuclear Power is Good

2009-08-25T02:12:00.002-04:00

Medical Isotope Shortage

Joan Stephenson, PhD
JAMA. 2009;302(7):732.

A worldwide "critical shortage" of medical isotopes is expected due to the shutdown until late 2009 of a nuclear reactor in Ontario, Canada, according to Canadian authorities. The reactor, which stopped operations because of a heavy water leak, produces as much as 40% of the global supply of molybdenum 99 (99Mo), which decays to form technetium 99m (99mTc). 99mTc is currently used in approximately 80% of nuclear medicine scans.

According to Natural Resources Canada, the world's current supply of 99Mo is produced by 5 aging reactors in Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands, and South Africa. The shortage was expected to be exacerbated by the temporary closing of the Netherlands reactor for a month-long maintenance inspection from July 18 to August 18. Because the isotopes have a relatively short half life, they cannot be stockpiled.

Canadian authorities said they were working with medical isotope distributors and others to maximize the use of existing isotope supplies and with other international producers to increase isotope production and to coordinate shutdowns and other operations.

That's right, we use nuclear power to make medically-important isotopes. Well, not "we," as in local US plants but we rely on foreign plants to irradiate our 'topes for us. I'm not sure why we don't have our own plants churning out isotopes ourselves, but that could be related to the fact that we haven't built a new nuclear plant in America in 30+ years. There's a brain drain of nuclear expertise from this country and we'd probably have to import some European-made design if we ever started being smart with nuclear and joined the proper energy source of the 21st century.

That's right, I think nuclear power is great. Think about it: nuclear power produces virtually no greenhouse gases and can make us virtually energy independent. Two big birds down with one stone. Oh, and if you want to create jobs - how about building new plants and building a smart nuclear engineer workforce in America? Nuclear energy has a proven safety record in America - and this is with using clunking designs from 50 years ago. How much better would we be with if we built new, more efficient and safer designs that we find in places like France? This is one area where France got it right: most of the electrical energy of France is supplied by French nuclear power plants.

Worried about nuclear waste? Read up about Yucca Mountain - a location long-studied in geology as an ideal place to store radioactive waste and practically ready for operation if the politicians would only let it. Worried about transportation of radioactive waste? The US has a track record of shipping waste thousands of times and there has never been an incident or accidental release of waste. Worried about terrorists? Seriously? You can't hold back our nation's progress based on the fear of a might-happen. All nuclear facilities in America are very well guarded.

That all said, I don't think nuclear fission will be the only power source of the future. I think solar energy is an excellent source as well. Solar energy bathes America with tons of free energy on a daily basis and if we could harness even a bit of that (particularly from our little populated, but very illuminated Southwest deserts) the Sun could easily supply more energy for us than this country uses many times over. Hydroelectric power has its niche uses but it's poor for general energy supply. Wind energy seems like a goofy idea to me and likely to always be marginal since it's such an eyesore. Other ideas like geothermal are unlikely to become much since their technical maturity would come at around the same time as nuclear fusion power and fusion could be the real powerhouse for the end of the 21st century.

Nuclear power is power of the future - whether it's made right here on Earth or has to travel 93 million miles from Sol.

The Essential Orthoprax

2009-08-06T01:36:00.003-04:00

Every now and again Jewish skeptics of various stripes respond with some surprise when I tell them that I am observant of Jewish rituals, traditions and the like. Sure, they can understand wearing a yarmulkah for social reasons, playing along while in public and eating Thursday night chulent, but observance in private for its own sake seems like a bewildering concept. So I'd like to go over here my reasons for observance in no particular order.

First off there's the basic essential of Jewish identity. Of course many Jews are not observant and especially not of all the minutiae of Halacha and yet still consider their self-identification as Jews to be very strong, but I find that if I'm not cognizant of the likes of Shabbos and our annual pageant of holidays then I'm missing a big part of the Jewish experience. I'm set apart from core Jewry if I don't know where the local synagogue is or what time candles are supposed to be lit. I'd feel out of sync and adrift if I'm not fasting on Tisha B'av or attending a seder for Pesach or even keeping kosher in inconvenient places. There's nothing immoral about eating meat during the nine days, but you're breaking with a shared Jewish experience if you do so. To be Jewish is to DO Jewish and identity absent these core activities may be fragile.

And this leads into the related reason of demographics. I care about the Jewish people and our fate as a group - but demographically we are suffering deeply from the likes of assimilation and intermarriage. And who are most likely to marry out or otherwise be lost from Jewry? These are the people who are least observant. Reform Jews have an astounding intermarriage rate and low retention over generations. If Reform Judaism was the only brand of Judaism available today I would have grave doubts about the survival of Jews as an identifiable group for even just a few generations down the line. Observance is correlated with significant knowledge of Jewish texts and general heritage and is correlated with intramarriage and strong Jewish identities over generations. Commitment to an observant life is a vote of confidence in the livelihood of the Jewish people.

Another important reason is that doing frank religious acts is a way of bringing the sacred into everyday life. Modern man is overly concerned about what he can get out of an activity. Shaking a bush and a lemon seems like a silly (and costly) thing to do without any benefit to anyone - and materially that's true. But what it does, through our history of investing in the act a sense of the divine, it brings the divine into what is otherwise a very secular existence. Now, as is well known by most who read my blog (I think), my conceptions of God are rather different from the popular views and even from what much of tradition suggests, but nevertheless, raising our minds to the transcendent of existence by using Jewish rituals as vehicles is something I consider a worthwhile effort.

This is also related to another criticism I've heard from a friend of mind who stated that he didn't particularly believe in God because once it was understood that God wasn't a doorway for on high reward or punishment and that intercessionary prayer is ineffective then he didn't really care about the metaphysics of the matter as it doesn't really effect him either way. The philosophical abstractions I tend to conceive of don't interest him, even while he may recognize them as plausible. This is a fair criticism if you are seeking religiosity as a means to an end in the way modern man approaches virtually everything - What's in it for me? But if the goal is simply truth-seeking then it is simply that life choices follow convictions. The point is not to choose convictions for the mere sake of making your life easier. So it is from my conviction of basic philosophical positions that observant life follows.

Now, here's a bunch of potluck ideas that are not full justifications on their own but do string through my mind: There's the sense of continuity and history with thousands year old practices. Pride in being a Jew and in being a Jew and a man in the street and at home. A sense of irony that Jews should give up their cultural and religious vocation at a unique time in history when Jews can choose whether to be Jewish or not. A sense of duty to past generations that have suffered and sacrificed on behalf of being Jewish and doing Jewish. Ethical improvement that can be accomplished through correctly applying various traditional experiences and measures. And of course for various acts there is the simple fact that I enjoy performing them.

So is it still so surprising why I remain Orthoprax?

In Usufruct to the Living

2009-08-03T00:10:00.005-04:00

The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been started either on this or our side of the water...and that no such obligation can be so transmitted I think very capable of proof.--I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, "that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living": that the dead have neither powers nor rights over it. - Thomas Jefferson, 1789 [From here]

This is an interesting quote which means that one generation cannot obligate a later generation in any way. This is relevant in terms of great public debts where, by right, the time to pay it off ought to be within the same generation's lifetime which benefited from the loan. The Earth belongs to each generation fully in each's turn and a past generation cannot rightly rule over those presently living.

As Jefferson goes on (my bolding):

To keep our ideas clear when applying them to a multitude, let us suppose a whole generation of men to be born on the same day, to attain mature age on the same day, and to die on the same day, leaving a succeeding generation in the moment of attaining their mature age all together. Let the ripe age be supposed of 21. years, and their period of life 34. years more, that being the average term given by the bills of mortality to persons who have already attained 21. years of age. Each successive generation would, in this way, come on, and go off the stage at a fixed moment, as individuals do now. Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. the 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation. Then no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of it's own existence.

Jefferson went even further and calculated with the given life expectancy of his time and actuarial numbers that at 21 years of age, half of the people of that generation would be dead in 18 or 19 years and therefore, "19 years is the term beyond which neither the representatives of a nation, nor even the whole nation itself assembled, can validly extend a debt." As a half-life, extending a repayment of a debt any longer than that would impinge on a following generation which never agreed to accept the debt in the first place.

In an egregious example: "Suppose Louis XV. and his contemporary generation had said to the money-lenders of Genoa, give us money that we may eat, drink, and be merry in our day; and on condition you will demand no interest till the end of 19. years you shall then for ever after receive an annual interest of 125/8 per cent. The money is lent on these conditions, is divided among the living, eaten, drank, and squandered. Would the present generation be obliged to apply the produce of the earth and of their labour to replace their dissipations? Not at all."

I suppose that the recieved opinion, that the public debts of one generation devolve on the next, has been suggested by our seeing habitually in private life that he who succeeds to lands is required to pay the debts of his ancestor or testator: without considering that this requisition is municipal only, not moral; flowing from the will of the society...but that between society and society, or generation and generation, there is no municipal obligation, no umpire but the law of nature. We seem not to have percieved that, by the law of nature, one generation is to another as one independant nation to another.

Consider this idea as our nation's federal government's uncontrolled spending of recent years has left us with a huge $11 trillion deficit with annual interest payments that amount to nearly 10% of our whole federal budget. Is it our generation alone who will be paying this debt?

Are we doing right by our children?

Insensible Losses

2009-07-29T19:53:00.003-04:00

I weigh about 190 pounds. That's equal to about 85 kilograms.

To figure out the appropriate hourly fluid replenishment for a (basically) healthy 85 kg patient just lounging around in the hospital we follow the 4-2-1 rule, which is that for the first 10 kg we supply 4 cc per kg per hour, the next 10 is 2 cc per kg per hour and then 1 cc per kg per hour for the rest of the weight. So 40 + 20 + 65 = 125 cc per hour.

This means that a basically healthy 85 kg guy (like me) loses around 125 mL of fluid from urine and insensible losses (think sweating, respiration, etc) per hour.

Over a 25 hour period that amounts to a nice figure of 3,125 mL or 3.125 Liters. Think about it - that's a huge water debt. A big bottle of soda is only 2 Liters of fluid.

People don't drink enough before a fast and it's dehydration far more than hunger that makes them feel like crap.

So drink well and have a meaningful fast.

Healthcare, Oh Boy

2009-07-28T22:21:00.004-04:00

So I was asked recently to publish my views on the ongoing healthcare debate facing this country. I’m not sure why my views are so sought out given that I have some obvious vested interests in the issue, but regardless it is a topic of interest to me and I haven’t blogged in awhile so this is a good topic to rebreak the ice on.

To be clear, the issue at hand is the concept of a broad-covering government sponsored ‘insurance’ plan essentially modeled after similar programs like Medicaid for the poor and Medicare for the elderly to include anyone else who doesn’t fit into either of those titles. And apparently there are a whole bunch of Americans who are set in just that fix – 47 million is the number which gets thrown around, but just who are these 47 million Americans?

From the US Census Bureau:

Did you know that nearly 18 million of them are people from households that make more than $50,000 a year, i.e. people who could afford insurance but opt otherwise? And 8 million or so are between the ages of 18 and 24?
Did you know that around 10 million of these uninsured are not citizens of the United States, i.e. those who would not be covered by any of the public options being bandied around Congress anyway (and even should they be covered)?
Did you know that about 25% of these uninsured are estimated to already be eligible for existing public programs?

Now these figures likely overlap a bit, but you can pretty easily see that 47 million problems have been cut in at least half, if not more. Do ~20+ million truly uninsurable American citizens require an entire reformation of the system or are there some obvious and simple tweaks we could make that would absorb them into what already exists? Could we do that without costing (likely far more than) a trillion dollars over ten years? Hmm...

It has also been suggested by ‘objective’ assessments of medical care provided by different countries that the United States offers healthcare at about as good quality as Iran, or something to that effect. By counting things like average life expectancy and infant mortality and comparing them to some European nations, it appears that the US comes far inferior. But what these same comparisons fail to realize is that it’s isn’t just healthcare that determines those figures. Americans tend to also be generally more unhealthy in their simple daily diets and activities than those other countries – this alone could leave the statistics showing a reduced life expectancy in America. And unlike in Europe, Americans are far less likely to abort imperfect fetuses and far more willing to try and save premature babies – thereby leading to higher reports of infant mortality.

Additionally, US News and World Reports writes “[I]t's shaky ground to compare U.S. infant mortality with reports from other countries. The United States counts all births as live if they show any sign of life, regardless of prematurity or size. This includes what many other countries report as stillbirths. In Austria and Germany, fetal weight must be at least 500 grams (1 pound) to count as a live birth; in other parts of Europe, such as Switzerland, the fetus must be at least 30 centimeters (12 inches) long. In Belgium and France, births at less than 26 weeks of pregnancy are registered as lifeless. And some countries don't reliably register babies who die within the first 24 hours of birth. Thus, the United States is sure to report higher infant mortality rates.”

Now, putting that all aside for now, I’d like to discuss a couple of philosophical problems I have with the idea of these semi-socializing welfare programs in general. The key thing to always keep in mind with welfare programs is that they sound nice and kind, but there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. See, it’s a great political ploy that works again and again and again whenever it’s tried since not only do politicians get to play the moral high ground by offering the people free healthcare, for example, (as they oppose the opposition which clearly prefers that people die without treatment) – they also get to offer them free stuff! And what electorate can resist the idea of free stuff with the moral superiority package? But it ain’t free – somebody has to foot the bill.

Historically, those who were mandated to pay for the peoples’ insurance were the general taxpayers as they funded Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP and so on – all unrestrained entitlements that are bankrupting this country. But also corporations and small businesses had to supply their workers with expensive health benefits which was a cost passed simply onto the consumers (ie the American people) and made American products completely uncompetitive on the international markets (which is also part of the reason why the United States is no longer an industrialized nation). And who has recently been suggested to pay for this newest gift to the American people? The middle class, of course. But how smart do you think it is to continue taxing the most productive segments of society – in a recession no less! - to sink money into the least productive? At a certain point, those smart people are going to realize that their hard work and ability is no longer working for them, but against them as they sooner and sooner hit marginal returns on their EARNED rewards. Better for them to work 30 hours a week and keep $150,000 than to work 60 hours a week and take home $200,000, eh? From where then are any of these programs going to be funded? Thus you should be not shocked at all to find that European per capita GDPs tend to be 25% less than America’s.

And despite what people clamor on and on about, healthcare is NOT a right. You cannot have a right to a service that someone else provides. Rights are natural things that surround the idea of personal freedom which others ought not interfere with. You have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit if happiness, but you don’t have the right to impose your will on a medical professional to treat you since that would enslave him and take away his rights. Free people trade value for value and you have the right to pursue professional care of your health through peaceful interactions. Doctors are not serfs and will not put up for long being government property.

Now, with even all of that said, the key thing to recognize is that financially the US healthcare system sucks. The U.S. healthcare system costs double what other countries cost with largely comparable end results. Even though nations with socialized medicine have a degree of rationing – so do we, TODAY. Sure, it’s not the government largely doing the rationing (though it obviously is in part as any Medicare recipient is well aware) but is it better when private insurance companies do not cover everything or have restrictively high premiums? In America we don’t ration by first come first serve, we ration by ability to pay. Better? And even though we don’t have a well organized socialized system, we still mandate that anyone coming in to an ER will be seen and treated – which is essentially the way the government eventually picks up the tab for the uninsured. The uninsured have no provisions for regular visits and simple meds to keep them in health so they show up to the Emergency Room when disaster eventually strikes, costing the system way more than regular upkeep would. So we effectively already have socialized medicine in America, we’re just paying for it ass-backwards.

The solution? I favor the gradual removal of all of these government-sponsored entitlement programs and a return to individual payment for medical care. Way better than any fraud-infested bloated bureaucracy or even any profit-driven corporation, the best person to take care of your own expenses is you. If you’re paying, little doubt you’d pay attention to the reasons for every proposed test, little doubt you’d seek the generic drug when you’re told it works as well as the more expensive new one, little doubt you’d not want to overload the system with minor complaints, little doubt you’d take a measure of responsibility for your own care and know your own history so that your doctor at the new hospital doesn’t need to redo a whole slew of the same tests you got at the hospital in your old town. This reality plus a healthy charity mentality in medicine is the way to go. Healthcare should be recognized as a charity of high regard – millionaires should endow hospitals and individuals can help others in their community. Doctors too should be willing to take a certain number of pro bono cases, since after all, they can afford it now that they are actually receiving the money they billed from their regular patients.

But since this is never going to happen, is a broad covering government insurance option the worst idea? Perhaps not. If creating it removes our other non-afforded entitlement programs then it may be well worth it. But will it end up being the same kind of bloated bureaucracy, with waste and fraud being hallmarks of government involvement - most probably. My prediction: it will happen eventually - it will cost a ton of money, be moderately effective and significantly rationed which will lead to the existence of a two-tiered medical coverage system. People who have private coverage will want to stay private while everyone else will be grouped in the new program. It won’t change medical care all that much but will possibly lead to simpler medical billing for many Americans. Economically we'll get by but with people far less willing to share their earnings charitably (like it is in Europe, charity is a rare gift) and our grandchildren will be the ones still paying the interest on our out of control spending today.

Better?

Memorial Day

2009-05-25T20:05:00.002-04:00

On report about the land of America:

"Jews, there, are treated just like human beings, instead of dogs. They can work at any business they please; they can sell brand new goods if they want to; they can keep drug-stores; they can practice medicine among Christians; they can even shake hands with Christians if they choose; they can associate with them, just the same as one human being does with another human being; they don't have to stay shut up in one corner of the towns; they can live in any part of a town they like best; it is said they even have the privilege of buying land and houses, and owning them themselves, though I doubt that, myself; they never have had to run races naked through the public streets, against jackasses, to please the people in carnival time; there they never have been driven by the soldiers into a church every Sunday for hundreds of years to hear themselves and their religion especially and particularly cursed; at this very day, in that curious country, a Jew is allowed to vote, hold office, yea, get up on a rostrum in the public street and express his opinion of the government if the government don't suit him! Ah, it is wonderful."

-Twain, Mark. "The Innocents Abroad," 1869.

It bothers me to no end how too often do people nowadays completely take for granted the amazing country we live in. It's so cliche already, but the real freedoms we have here as well as the opportunities which permit us to reach as high as we are able are gifts unprecedented in all of human history. Sure, America is not perfect and there's plenty to criticize in its history and recent events, but the ideals it stands for, as embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, are among the best and highest ever set in text.

So it's quite proper now to take a moment and acknowledge the great sacrifices (some with the ultimate sacrifice) given by American servicemen to protect us and our way of life. May we soon see the day when no further American soldier need give so much.

Absurd Adventism

2009-05-25T02:01:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure why but it seems that people I meet often feel comfortable to share their nutty beliefs with me. It started when I went into see this one patient who from the very beginning upon my entrance into the exam room was eyeing my yarmulkah. This happens from time to time and nothing usually comes of it. Sometimes things do, obviously, but generally the patients don't seem to care much. Anyway, that was the way this interaction seemed to be heading since nothing came of it throughout the standard history and physical that I do for every patient. But as things were wrapping up, he gave me a strange little look and asks, "You Jewish?"

"That I am." I respond, entirely unsuspicious. For some people it's rare for them to have extended interaction with a Jew of any stripe and so they'll often ask me an innocuous question or two.

"Ah," he says, "I thought so."

So I answer dry as a bone, "Oh, what gave it away?"

He laughs, tells me I'm a funny guy - and then the conversation turns weird.

After confirming that I observe the Sabbath on Saturdays he reveals that he's a Seventh Day Adventist and asks me if I'm worried about that. Worried about observing Shabbos? Not really, I answer. He goes on to tell me that I should be because the Pope is planning on enforcing a one-day Sabbath observance and that it'll be on Sunday. Now I'm not exactly an expert on Papal policy, nor do I closely follow Vatican movements, but that didn't sound like something high on the Pope's agenda - and in any event, I didn't care much about the Pope's efforts on that issue. I tell him that the Saturday/Sunday divide has been an issue between Christians and Jews for some time now and I wasn't expecting the Pope to start religious coercion over the Sabbath in modern day.

Not so, he responds, the day is coming soon for when we'll all have to *run to the mountains* to escape this coming religious persecution or otherwise suffer martyrdom! He directs me to read Revelations and the Book of Daniel, where he insists that this whole course of events is clearly written.

Woah.

That's some wacky stuff. Eschatological beliefs in general tend to approximate different forms of nuttiness, but as the beliefs become more specific and the timeline more acute it becomes only more obvious. I was willing to chalk this one up to one man's weird understanding of religion or Papal conspiracy paranoia since I had some affinity to Seventh-day Adventists, but it turns out that this is basic ideology of the original Adventist Church!

So sayeth Wiki, "The pioneers of the church taught that the Seventh-day Sabbath will be a test, leading to the sealing of God's people during the end times. Ellen G. White interpreted Daniel 7:25, Revelation 13:15, Revelation 7, Ezekiel 20: 12, 20 and Exodus 31:13 this way. Where the subject of persecution appeared in prophecy, it was thought to be about the Sabbath commandment. Some early Adventists were jailed for working on Sunday, in violation of various local "Sunday laws" or blue laws which legislated Sundays as a day of rest. It was expected that a universal Sunday law would soon be enforced, as a sign of the end times."

An interesting aside is that the Adventists were early critics of the Blue Laws, which were designed in the early part of the last century to protect the so-believed Christian heritage of the nation by enforcing certain aspects of Sunday. Some of the Blue Laws still persist today throughout the country, including limitations on liquor stores to not operate on Sunday mornings and the fact that the United States Postal Service does not deliver on Sunday. In this manner, the Adventists have been suspicious of government intrusion into religious life - an orientation that benefited all minority faiths in this country.

See, it's strange how rational-appearing people can have truly way-out-there understandings of the world laying right below the surface. Though, on retrospect, that should not have been so shocking from the Adventists, given that it is a religion founded on the *thrice-failed* predictions of William Miller and Samuel Snow regarding Jesus' immanent return in 1843/1844. As a religion focused on eschatology (hence the "advent" part of Adventist), I wonder whether there is anything to be concerned about over this rapidly expanding religion.

Dammit Jim!

2009-05-18T22:51:00.002-04:00

Just saw Star Trek over the weekend. With honor, I present:

Where's that from?

2009-05-16T21:27:00.004-04:00

If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age, irrespective of whom he holds his lands. If such a debt falls into the hands of the Crown, it will take nothing except the principal sum specified in the bond.

If a man dies owing money to Jews, his wife may have her dower and pay nothing towards the debt from it. If he leaves children that are under age, their needs may also be provided for on a scale appropriate to the size of his holding of lands. The debt is to be paid out of the residue, reserving the service due to his feudal lords.

Debts owed to persons other than Jews are to be dealt with similarly.

Nice. Guess the source.

Who Said it?

2009-05-14T01:25:00.002-04:00

Alexander of Aphrodisius said that there are three causes which prevent men from discovering the exact truth: first, arrogance and vainglory; secondly, the subtlety, depth, and difficulty of any subject which is being examined; thirdly, ignorance and want of capacity to comprehend what might be comprehended. These causes are enumerated by Alexander.

At the present time there is a fourth cause not mentioned by him, because it did not then prevail, namely, habit and training. We naturally like what we have been accustomed to, and are attracted towards it. This may be observed amongst villagers; though they rarely enjoy the benefit of a douche or bath, and have few enjoyments, and pass a life of privation, they dislike town life and do not desire its pleasures, preferring the inferior things to which they are accustomed, to the better things to which they are strangers; it would give them no satisfaction to live in palaces, to be clothed in silk, and to indulge in baths, ointments, and perfumes.

The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views. This is likewise one of the causes which prevent men from finding truth, and which make them cling to their habitual opinions.

Quote from whom? (No cheating!)

The Physicians’ Perspective: Medical Practice in 2008

2009-05-11T21:43:00.002-04:00

"Through responses provided by approximately 12,000 physicians nationwide that included more than 800,000 data points – as well as through written comments by more than 4,000 physicians – the survey offers a unique and valuable insight into the practices and mindsets of today’s doctors."

Some key findings:

Only 6% described the professional morale of their colleagues as “positive”
78% said medicine is either “no longer rewarding” or “less rewarding”
60% said they would not recommend medicine as a career to young people

Only 17% rated the financial position of their practices as “healthy and profitable”
82% said their practices would be “unsustainable” if proposed cuts to Medicare reimbursement are made
65% said Medicaid reimbursement is less than their cost of providing care
36% said Medicare reimbursement is less than their cost of providing care
33% have closed their practices to Medicaid patients
12% have closed their practices to Medicare patients

49% of physicians indicated they will take one or more steps in the next one to three years that will reduce or eliminate patient access to their practices:
11% said they plan to retire
13% said they will pursue a job in a non-patient care setting
20% said they will cut back on patients seen
10% said they will work part time
7.5% said they will work locum tenens
7% said they will switch to concierge practices

So folks, for those of you who're steaming forward trying to establish a Medicare-type plan for everyone in the country - where do you expect to find doctors who will be willing to accept them? More and more doctors are finding that public health "insurance" programs reimburse them less than they're laying out, thereby making such practices frankly unsustainable. In response, more and more practices are simply not accepting such insurance programs.

Consider: these programs which are designed to help the poor gain access to care are actually making it more difficult.

How can the state respond?

Oh, we get fun stories like this from Illinois where the attorney general sued clinics who were simply trying to stay in business. They refused to accept more Medicaid patients because they just could not afford to continue operating at the reimbursement rates they were receiving. Yes, apparently the state thinks it has the right not only to dictate prices but also the right to force doctors to accept them. Isn't it nice to see doctors becoming government serfs? Does anyone think actions like these will encourage people to enter the healthcare arena, much less primary care?

My solutions: return free market medicine to primary care. Don't pretend that government reimbursement is full compensation for the doctor's time and effort. Care given to those who cannot pay should be understood as charity care and should be able to be deducted come tax day.

"CAM" BS

2009-05-10T05:40:00.003-04:00

Academic medicine is supposed to be different. It is supposed to exist for the purpose of applying scientific principles to medicine and thereby making new discoveries to use to treat disease, testing them in clinical trials to find out if they are effective, and then applying them systematically. Uncritically introducing therapies that are by their very nature unscientific, therapies like homeopathy, reiki, reflexology, and “energy medicine” taints the entire scientific enterprise at these institutions. Worse, offering such therapies outside the context of a clinical trial in academic medical centers gives the patina of scientific credibility to therapies that have not earned it, promoting the impression that science supports their efficacy....Medicine has finally, after over a hundred years, evolved to the point where it can actually become truly science- and evidence-based. From my perspective, the growing uncritical acceptance of CAM in academic medicine is a major threat to the continuation of that evolution. There should be no such thing as “alternative” medicine, anyway. There is medicine that is effective, as determined by science and clinical trials, and there is medicine that is not or is as yet unproven. We should not be “integrating” the latter with the former, and especially not in academia.

-Dr. David Gorsky; "The infiltration of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and 'integrative medicine' into academia."

Excellent article. Do read: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=28

Overheard in Conversation

2009-05-09T21:48:00.002-04:00

"I think vampires are real. How do you know vampires don't exist? It says in the Torah that witches are real, so why not vampires?"

...

Can't argue with that...

Pet Peeve

2009-04-30T18:17:00.002-04:00

It really annoys me when I'm walking down the street and some random guy (always non-Jewish) walking the other way will say "Shalom!" to me and then continue on their way. They don't mean it maliciously as far as I can tell, but it's offensive in the same way as walking up to a Native American and saying "How!" would be.

Wearing a yarmulkah doesn't make me an effing mascot, jerks.

Picture God?

2009-04-27T04:05:00.002-04:00

In response to Daas Hedyot's recent post, where he asks "What persona was your god?," he gave me pause to recall how I conceived of God as a child, and this is what I pictured:

I can't remember a time when I ever considered God to be any kind of person. Even as a child if I tried to picture God, I thought of a black misty cloud against a dark backdrop or of my standing before a focused yet endless expanse of white presence. God was the moral imperative that without words communicated approval or disappointment for my behavior.

In retrospect, I guess I had a different kind of picture than most people. This may be instructive.

Nihil and Void

2009-04-19T23:18:00.004-04:00

Sigh. Alright, we're here again pondering the meaning of life. I halfway hate myself when I think about these issues because I sound irritatingly like some angsty teenager, but in reality people don't typically figure it out to any real satisfaction, they just ignore it by embracing one distraction after another. Perhaps that's easier to do as an adult when there are more practical concerns (whether necessary or artificial) which can serve as distractions. But in any event this issue should bother people right down to their very being, whether they go to highschool or can drink alcohol legally.

Of course nobody really knows the answer but there are a two basic approaches: one, that there is no point and the only "goal" is to make yourself as fulfilling a life experience as you can - however you define that for yourself. Or two, there is a point and the ideal is to match your goals to be in proper accordance with that point - however you understand the point to be.

Obviously you can see the basic self-centered vs externally centered foci between the approaches. There's a value judgement there that makes (at least) me feel that selfish concerns should not be the ends of one's existence, but that hardly serves as a point of fact to base a conclusion on. I go back and forth on this issue - often several times a day. That is, when I'm not distracted. When I'm feeling idealistic and moralistic I find myself leaning towards there being a reason for existence - where what we do matters, where our choices and the effects of our choices matter beyond how they make us feel. In those times I feel encouraged to pursue an active course of bettering the world, fighting for causes, conscientiously intervening in things gone wrong.

But then there are other times when I think that everything I know and everyone who knows me will be gone and lost and long forgotten by some not-too-distant future time. So I feel fatalistic and disinclined to make an effort to change anything at all. Kohelet. Humanity is filled with the wretched, the poor, the liars, the hypocrites; persecuters and the persecuted - all destined to die after a few short years, why work yourself up about it? This has been the staus quo for virtually all of human history and there is little sign of it changing. I'm constantly amazed at how far we've gone and how we've survived so long when there is so many WRONGS in how people do things. Our public institutions reek of intrigue and scandals. Our private lives fill the newspapers with crime and senselessness. Civilization itself may just be a bubble waiting to burst. Is anything worth fighting for?

In the end I make the conscious decision to live as though there is a point. But in my heart the battle wages and I fear that the other side - the void of fatalism and selfish nihilism - may take the field.

A Haiku: Palliative Care

2009-04-05T11:13:00.002-04:00

Palliative Care
Not meant to cure what ails you
Hope you feel better

L'Chaim...

2009-04-03T13:45:00.003-04:00

So I'm in the middle of a two-week stint of Geriatrics right now. The topics of the day invariably surround the most depressing parts of medical practice. We have the incurable chronic conditions, the terminally ill, the demented, the depressed, the disabled and the debilitated. How many times have I heard the term "health care proxy" this week? I can't even guess. Palliative care; "sedation therapy."

Which is more depressing - nursing homes or hospices? At nursing homes the residents are generally demented and seem to exist in a sad world of juice boxes, patronizing nursing staff and the pervasive smell of urine. A second childhood? Perhaps. More akin to a gentle warehouse where they wait for...y'know. At the hospice the patients are generally making the good faith effort to gradually complete their wretched existence which at the end revolves around their particular personal horror. Yet their families want them to die "with dignity." Ha. Dying with dignity is among the most mythic of all ideas. There is no dignity in death, folks. None at all.

Are these the successes or the failures of modern medicine? Thanks to modern medicine we've destroyed the previous strongholds of the Angel of Death. Infectious disease, once the major killer of humanity, has now largely fallen thanks to germ theory and antibiotics. Women dying in childbirth is today only a remnant of the merciless killer of a bygone era. What we are left with are the chronic conditions like heart disease, COPD, and cancer. We are so good at keeping people alive longer that more of them successfully make it to a state of debilitation and dementia. On the one hand, of course it is better that people live longer (and presumably better) lives today - but on the other hand, they weren't storehousing people in nursing homes and hospices in the past. Of course we are glad when a person survives an ordeal that would have easily taken them in a previous century, but we then all too likely send them on their way to a possibly worse ordeal before they take their final leave. Better? Depressing. The Angel of Death is less brazen today, but he makes up for it by being more sinister.

There is no mystery for why this is so. Evolution via natural selection is a great problem solver but it applies its solutions jealously only towards the primary goals of survival and procreation. The human body is incredibly complex and works amazingly well - but only for the first few decades of life. Y'know, the decades where the procreation and raising of young takes place. After the children are grown the elder generation no longer serves a much adaptive role. They are expendable. Natural selection stops working its problem solving magic on the likes of grandparents and soon enough the human body breaks apart on predictable fault lines. If the human body is like an automobile - modern medicine has largely cured the likes of a head-on collision, but after driving hundreds of thousands of miles even the best designed car will be totaled by an accumulation of wear and tear.

Ideally the purpose of medicine is to cure disease - not to let disease win. Yet palliative care is about letting the disease takes its natural course while treating the symptoms. Perhaps we need to recognize our limits since medicine today is still remarkably primitive in many ways, but palliation is still the real booby prize of medicine. The patients suffer less but they still die. There are no victories, only slightly less bitter defeats.

Eye Opening...

2009-03-15T00:43:00.003-04:00

'What was practicing general surgery like?'

"Horrible!! Absolutely horrible. The ER would call with "this old lady has non-specific belly pain...I'd like you to come lay hands on her?" As if my hands are magical. As if I can really tell what the hell's going on. The ER doc is just trying to cover his ass (which is necessary in a society where patients see a 'normal, expected complication' as an opportunity to get rich), so it makes my workload that much heavier. So, I got lots of these CYA calls. Also, I was oncall every 4th night. And sometimes that would increase if a member of our group was ill, or otherwise absent. The money was pathetic, especially for the amount of time you're available...I couldn't even have a glass of wine with dinner, for fear I may be called in. I wouldn't make promises to attend events, or meet other obligations (that may be more meaningful to my life and well-being), just in case I got called in...or happened to run late on a case. This is a big imposition on your life..

Basically, your life is unbalanced. You miss tons of things that are important to you. You go thru life sleepy and tired...chronically. Your health isn't optimal...and it's all for what? To be called 'a surgeon.' That will get old as your children begin acting out in school....or choose grandpa over you for comfort and snuggles. When they seem to not like you very much...and you feel excluded from their lives. When you have a mild, dull headache from lack of sleep (or some other vital ingredient to a healthy body), on that 1 day off you may have in 10. And, low and behold, if you get 2 consecutive days off....you try to make-up for lost time. Guess what? You *cannot* make up for lost time. So, do you really want to spend your life doing this? And if not, why torture yourself for a decade, give up your 20s/30s, when you could be building something more sustainable....mentally, and physically?

'Any advise for those who may be trying to decide on a specialty?'

Shouldn't students pursue something they'll enjoy rather than a choose based on lifestyle? I agree that you should do a medical specialty that you (think you'll) enjoy. But, how long will you enjoy a miserable lifestyle? Is the practice of 'that specialty which brings you joy' going to be *enough joy* to off-set the absence of life outside of work? Like seeing your kids play little league. Being there at your daughter's dance recital. Taking your kids to a puppet show in the middle of the week at the local library. Sleeping in late on Sunday morning, then going out to brunch, spur-of-the-moment with your wonderful family. Drinking until you're tipsy, and then having great sex with your spouse. Just having time for creative flow of energy, and silence to obtain inner peace!! These things may not be possible if you only get one day off a week...and you have a ton of basic life stuff to attend to. For the rest of your life...imagine 'not having enough time.'

Who runs your household? Grandma or mother-in-law? That may be better than a nanny, but it's still not ideal. A mom who's in her 30s - 40s is a lot more attentive, active, and better able to deal with toddlers/tweens than a grandma. Besides, Grandma has raised her kids...and now it's time for her to be a *Grandma.* It's one thing for Grandparents to be intricately involved, and to hire a nanny for supplemental support as needed. But, if they're raising your kids instead of you...you'll have to consider the consequences of that (for both you, your family, and your children).

Would you rather pay someone to be the Mommy while you're the doctor...or would you rather be home doing the mommy (or daddy) thing yourself? Would you rather have other kid's fathers who have time to coach flag-football on Saturday mornings teach your son how to throw a football, or otherwise be present as the male figure in your son's life....while you're at work being the 'greatest surgeon ever?' It's no wonder that so many old men end up saying "Rosebud" as they lay dying, alone, on their deathbed.

You'll need to nurture your marriage, or it won't last. People (including spouses) will only tolerate so much. Even if you think your wife is "happy staying at home"...no one gets married to be alone.

You need to be present while your kids are kids. In 12-15 years, they won't need so much of your time...and a large part of your influence over them (your parental guidance) is over.
Are surgeons so cool? Yes and no. The work is like no other. It's exhilarating when you can cut someone open, and fix the problem. It's easy to get an ego...which is almost a requirement if you want to survive the process of training. If you're to compete, and not become an emotional wreck....you shield yourself from criticism with an enormous ego. This translates to the rest of your life....and your personal relationships will become antagonistic. At times, the only thing in your life going as planned is...surgery. So you hold on to that. Surgeons are as diverse as the population. I'm sure there are some who get off on being a surgeon because everyone says "ooohhhh." But, most people are just as impressed when you say "I'm a doctor." Nothing special (or even distinctive) about being a surgeon to much of the population. So, who are you really trying to impress? Other doctors? Your partner? Yourself? And that ego, that desire for respect and accolades, keeps 'em coming to surgery....even if it's not the right career choice for them. That thought of 'surgeons are so cool.'

Criteria used to decide:I say, decide *overall* what's important to you...and find a way to make those things fit together. This may mean choosing "your second favorite medical/surgical specialty" instead of your dream specialty...if you want a *dream life* overall!!

The Other Side of the Curtain

2009-03-12T16:51:00.002-04:00

So I'm now three quarters through my surgery third-year clerkship [and what, 15 months until my MD? Yikes!] and I'm thinking maybe it isn't the field for me. Not that I don't think the surgeries aren't cool, they really are for the most part, but there's a lot of baggage that comes with a surgery practice that I'm less keen on. There's the time spent in clinic, the time rounding on patients, the notes, the forms, the dictation on the phone, the frequent (and frequently busy) nights on call, the fact that my days run easily 14, 15, 16.....27 hours long, blah blah blah. And this isn't just residency, it's pretty typical of what an attending needs to do in general surgery too. I'm not letting all that cloud the coolness of doing surgery itself, but is it worth it? The money would be decent, but the lifestyle sucks and the practice is only a shining prize under a pile of detritus. I really don't know if that prize is worth the substantial cost.

I sense in myself the perspective that I wouldn't want to live this way my whole life and I would easily end up in a sub-specialty like colon/rectal (which sounds bad, but is actually cool because I have a fondness for the digestive system - don't know why), but once there I'd have to still do plenty of clinic/office time just so I could perform my half-dozen specialty procedures which I fear would eventually bore me. How awful.

So now I'm peeking over the curtain and considering another field: Anesthesiology. It's chock full of procedures (which are my favorite), they get to play with some of the most powerful drugs known to man, virtually no clinic, call is generally more limited and when called it isn't to consult but to do a procedure (intubate/epidural/general anesthesia/what have you). Anesthesiologists can also have a much more varied practice where they can be in the OR, on the labor floor, and in the ER or ICU securing a difficult airway all in one day. People tend to not realize this, but anesthesiologists are critical care specialists (as would make sense since they put people into a state of respiratory arrest multiple times daily) and often run the codes at the bedside. Plus, an anesthesiologist's day is defined by shift parameters so that when a case in the OR is running late, the anesthesiologist is relieved by the night shift at six or seven pm and goes home to eat dinner with his/her family while the surgeons go on working late into the night. And to top it all off, the compensation for anesthesiology is great - typically even better than a general surgeon.

In addition, there's virtually no overhead for an anesthesiologist's practice (which equates into significant freedom of where to live and where to work), they also get to wear pajamas (scrubs) to work all day, and they get to potentially participate in the full range of surgical procedures - pediatrics, plastics, brains, hearts, trauma, etc. - without being pigeonholed in a given specialty. The residency is also shorter, the people tend to be more personable, and the training is far less malignant.

Sounds pretty good, eh?

Some concerns: Would I get bored sitting in the 'cockpit' watching vital signs during those long cases? Will I be jealous of the surgeons and down the line regret my decision? (I have the same worry mirrored that if I'm a surgeon would I regret not choosing anesthesia? Though general surgery residencies have a 20% attrition rate, with most residents leaving for anesthesia. Comparatively, leaving anesthesia for another field is rare.)

Do CRNAs pose a real threat to the practice of anesthesia as we know it? (I doubt it.) Will socialized medicine reign in America to the point that I'd have to fill out more red tape and work longer hours for less compensation? (Same concern I have for most of medicine.)

Do You Know What You're Signing Up For?

2009-02-22T03:11:00.004-05:00

As apparently due to the ever increasing demand for organ donations and the limited supply of poor saps with brain death and viable organs, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and the United Network for Organ Sharing (known as OPTN/UNOS collectively, the non-profit group which determines national policy for organ donations) has lowered the bar on death as of July 2007. No longer is brain death the only standard by which organ harvesting may begin.

According to the new rules a suitable candidate for organ donation can consist of:

"1. A patient ... who has a nonrecoverable and irreversible neurological injury resulting in ventilator dependency but not fulfilling brain death criteria may be a suitable candidate for DCD [Donation after Cardiac Death].
2. Other conditions that may lead to consideration of DCD eligibility include end stage musculoskeletal disease, pulmonary disease, and high spinal cord injury."

The idea here being that once a patient is determined to be a good organ donating candidate (i.e. ventilator dependent and without likely hope of recovery), his or her doctor can (with agreement from the next of kin) switch off the ventilator, wait five minutes or so until the heart stops beating and then declare death. After which the body is taken to the OR by the organ retrieval team. But the key thing to understand is that the patient is not yet dead when the decision for organ donation is being determined!

As Dr. Keamy notes:

"For some of the pathophysiological states enumerated, this amounts to plucking the fruit off the vine shortly before it would fall anyway. But this list also includes people with advanced ALS like Stephen Hawking, who has lived in that "donation qualifying" state for two decades or so; there is no mention of brain function whatsoever in this formulation; lack of awareness is specifically not a necessary component for inclusion."

Additionally, one must recognize that this system sets an all too likely scenario where the doctor has a conflict of interest between his patient and the organs which will go to the patients' of others. He's flipping that switch on a schedule that may have nothing at all to do with the state of his patient's health status. The drugs doctors give at the end of life can be palliative but they can also double-edgedly be used euthanizing-ly. Plus, there are drugs that can be given for the sake of organs health which do nothing for the individual's length of life. For a person to become an organ donator while still alive is extremely dangerous territory. Because while we hope each physician will keep himself minding his patient's needs and only his patient's needs, organ donation can require massive coordination and it's doubtful he'd be operating in an "ethically pure" environment. Indeed, if he starts to care about the sake of those organs (as would be difficult for him not to), might he be operating at cross-purposes?

And last but not least, the Halachic implications are obvious. The person is not brain dead and is therefore NOT DEAD when the ventilator is turned off. At least according to US law, R' Moshe Tendler and HODS, that is. This method for organ donation would therefore be totally improper by those Halachic authorities which permit donation. It would in fact be murder. Though ironically, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate Council's test of "respiratory failure coupled with profound nonresponsiveness," which rejects the need to check for brain death may fit what OPTN/UNOS has decided.

Now, practically speaking, patients are pulled off of ventilators all the time even when brain death is not determined since that may have been the expressed will of the patient or the health care proxy. The secular legal precedent is already there many times over and if that's already accepted why shouldn't they schedule an organ harvest ahead of time to act upon death? Maybe this is a good call after all that will lead to more organs being available for those who need them. Maybe. For now though, adjusting the definition of death for the sake of organ donations gives me the willies.

Yesterday's Parsha

2009-02-01T00:46:00.002-05:00

Exodus 13 (KJV):

6Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, and in the seventh day shall be a feast to the LORD.
7Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters.
8And thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the LORD did unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.
9And it shall be for a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes, that the LORD's law may be in thy mouth: for with a strong hand hath the LORD brought thee out of Egypt.
10Thou shalt therefore keep this ordinance in his season from year to year.

11And it shall be when the LORD shall bring thee into the land of the Canaanites, as he sware unto thee and to thy fathers, and shall give it thee,
12That thou shalt set apart unto the LORD all that openeth the matrix, and every firstling that cometh of a beast which thou hast; the males shall be the LORD's.
13And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.
14And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? that thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the LORD brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage:
15And it came to pass, when Pharaoh would hardly let us go, that the LORD slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast: therefore I sacrifice to the LORD all that openeth the matrix, being males; but all the firstborn of my children I redeem.
16And it shall be for a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes: for by strength of hand the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt.

So we have eating matzah for seven days in order for it to be "a sign unto thee upon thine hand, and for a memorial between thine eyes" in order for when your son asks you what it's all about you can explain. And then we have redemption of the firstborn which is also given as "a token upon thine hand, and for frontlets between thine eyes" for the same co-generational exposure and explanation.

C'mon now, how do these verses imply leather boxes instead of simply figurative phrases describing a mnemonic device?

The Dying of General Surgery

2009-01-21T17:20:00.004-05:00

Chief surgical resident Aaron Kendrick, who wanted to be a surgeon since middle school, has spent almost six years in a grueling general surgery training program at Erlanger hospital.
But this summer he’s switching gears to begin a three-year residency in anesthesiology, a field with better pay and a more relaxed schedule that will allow Dr. Kendrick to spend time with his wife and new baby, due in December.

“Mainly for me it’s the predictability of schedule,” he said. “General anesthesiologists work shift work, and when your shift is done, you go home.”

The number of general surgery residents here who practice as general surgeons is falling, said Dr. Phillip Burns, chairman of the department of surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine’s campus in Chattanooga.

“Whereas 15 years ago 75 percent of our (general surgery residency) graduates here would be going into general surgery practice, it’s now down to about 25 percent,” Dr. Burns said.

...

“We have a shortage of surgeons, and physicians in general, that is coming on like a freight train in this country,” Dr. Burns said. “If we don’t do something to increase the numbers of surgeons that are graduating and available to go into spots, we’re going to have huge problems. In 10 years we’re going to have catastrophic problems.”

...

It’s a field in which pay is declining, with falling reimbursements from private insurers and government programs such as Medicare. Doctors also point to increasing medical liability insurance costs as a deterrent to entering the field.

For many young doctors entering practice with sometimes $150,000 in debt, general surgery may not make sense as a career choice, said Dr. Charles Portera, a surgical oncologist, a subspecialty that still incorporates general surgery.

“It’s kind of a sad state of affairs,” he said. “You’ve got to work harder to make the same amount of money that you did a few years ago. ... Why should these young kids go into it when there’s easier ways to make a living out there and still have a family and quality free time?”

[Full Article]

As a guy who's been interested in surgery since early childhood, it was quite the smack in the face to find that I have yet to encounter even one person involved in the medical field who would recommend going into general surgery. And I've spoken to plenty. The training is long, you work like a dog, and the compensation is small (and shrinking - thanks Medicare!) compared to the time put in and opportunity costs - and especially compared to the careers of other specialties.

General Surgery is a dying field in America through the shrinking compensations of government programs, endless hassles of hospital administrative red tape, which make for an unpleasant working environment and which exist only secondary to the perverse litigiousness of American society. This artificially intense liability of a surgeon simply working his trade also manages to add insult to injury by requiring ever larger chunks of one's salary be handed directly to malpractice insurance. As surgeons need to take on larger and larger loads just to stay afloat it saps them of leisure time, basic family interaction and those periodic iconic personal events that make up a person's private life.

Why would anyone want to be a general surgeon?

Heck, in twenty years where are you even going to find a general surgeon when your kid has emergent appendicitis at 3am? Is America ever going to wake up?

Little Details

2009-01-20T18:02:00.003-05:00

Right in the third sentence of his inaugural address Pres. Obama says:

"Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath."

Eh, not so much. Grover Cleveland swore himself in twice in nonconsecutive terms as number 22 and 24 Presidents of the United States.

Oh well.

In any case Obama made a decent speech, but I still think the best presidential speech I ever heard was this one:

Still brings tears to my eyes...

How I'm feelin'...

2009-01-19T00:53:00.002-05:00

Greatly Relieved - that a cease fire has finally been established in Gaza. Though...

Endlessly Frustrated - that a true peace seems further away than ever.

Growingly Anxious - about big career decisions that I'll need to make this year as I realize med school is nearing its final few stretches and most of my information comes in second hand form.

Downright Concerned - about the fate of medical practice in America where managed care, government regulations and CYA practice secondary to litigiousness is progressively grinding enthusiasm out of the field.

Abashedly Hopeful - as I see the strength of American democracy in the upcoming inauguration of Obama, through whom I also feel a...

Frank Solidarity - with the Black people of America who are seeing what was unthinkable just a few decades earlier.

Awed Delight - for Sully Sullenberger who with aplomb saved 150+ lives with an amazing landing in the Hudson.

Defeatedly Blase - about studying all this week for the coming exam that caps off my latest hospital rotation. Though I've also got..

High Hopes - for my irregular week off after that exam when maybe I'll go skiing and have a superbowl party or something.

There you go. The latest review of what's on OP's mind lately.

Conubium aka Kiddushin

2009-01-01T01:03:00.004-05:00

"According to [early] Roman law, a child is the legal heir of his father and is in his father's custody (potestas) only if his father and mother were joined in a legal marriage (justum matrimonium). The capacity to contract a legal marriage was called conubium (or ius conubii), and was possessed almost exclusively by Roman citizens. Marriage between a person with conubium and a person without conubium was valid, but it was not a justum matrimonium; and without a justum matrimonium, the status of the child follows that of the mother." - Shaye J. D. Cohen, "The Beginnings of Jewishness," page 294.

Compare with:

According to Jewish law, a child follows the tribal status of his father if both his father and mother possessed the capacity to join in a legal marriage. This capacity is called kiddushin and is possessed exclusively by Jews. Relations between a person capable of kiddushin and a person incapable of kiddushin, say a Jew and a Gentile, results in the status of the child following that of the mother.

An echo of Roman law in Halachic matrilineal descent?

A Story From Work

2008-12-16T16:44:00.007-05:00

I met a girl today. She's about three weeks old now, weighs about two pounds and has been in the NICU [Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] since birth. Let's call her Elizabeth - and this is her story which I feel compelled to write.

Elizabeth's mother is a crack addict with a $300 dollar per week habit. She's also an active prostitute working in the Bronx and she's got the likely slew of active infections that inevitably go along with that. Elizabeth's mother is 38 years old but looks like she's a senior citizen. Her mother realized for the first time that she was pregnant three weeks ago and came to the public hospital where I work to seek an elective termination of the pregnancy. And with a mother as unfit as she clearly is and a pregnancy as clearly unwanted as it was, nobody on staff seems to even think to object.

As you likely know, elective abortion is only legal in America up until the end of the second trimester or 24 weeks. What you may not know it that estimation of the fetal age can be done by ultrasound by taking measurements of different fetal anatomical features. It is well known by any competent obstretrics staff that by the second trimester these estimates can easily be as much as two weeks off. It can also be somewhat subjective since it depends on the ultrasound's operater to determine where to measure from. This technique's main purpose is just to show that the fetus is growing appropriately over time, not to age the fetus with a great degree of accuracy. Obviously the mother did not have even a single visit of prenatal care and so nobody knew how old the fetus was. The chief resident instructed the intern, "Go find out if the fetus is less than 24 weeks old." Then with the pressure to find a young fetus, the intern returned with a reported estimate of 23 weeks and 5 days.

With that factoid in the place, the team started to induce an abortion. The goal was to deliver the 23+ week old fetus intact and alive and then, since it being woefully premature and unprepared for the outside world, refrain from providing neonatal care with the expectation that nature would take its course and it would soon die. This is all permitted by current US law. And so this is what they did. They delivered the fetus and laid it on the crib in the delivery room under the warming light which was not turned on. She laid there for a full 7 minutes - losing body heat and not breathing while they dealt with care for the mother. At seven minutes, the attending physician walks in and sees that that fetus is still alive! She immediately calls in the neonatal pediatricians who manage to resuscitate the baby and Elizabeth is whisked away to the NICU, where she still lives today. After examination, it turns out that the baby weighed nearly 900 grams - a weight more consistent for a fetus of 27 weeks than of one of 23.

Think about what this means folks. What happened here was that these doctors were so jaded about bringing another unwanted crack-baby with hepatitis into the world that they fooled themselves (I'm being generous) into believing it was less than 24 weeks old, delivered it prematurely and then were willing to sit back and do nothing while it died right in front of them. When I saw poor Elizabeth in the NICU with tubes and probes going every which way and I heard this story I was absolutely floored. What the FUCK! I had previously worked with these people and I cannot believe that their judgement could be so absurdly screwed up on all moral, legal and medical levels.

Granted, a baby born - even at term - with a sustained cocaine exposure in utero and a number of serious infections is unlikely to have a great outcome, but delivering her prematurely and then allowing her to lie there freezing and anoxic for seven minutes surely didn't help her situation one bit! The neonatalogist treating her told me that she has good expectation to survive but zero expectation to do so without severe neurological consequences. I find it difficult to even find words to describe my enraged reaction to how the selfishness of the mother and the collaboration of her doctors lead to this horrible outcome for an innocent baby girl. It sounds like a sick joke, but she's an abortion survivor.

Of course her mom who tried to abort her did not give a damn and within one day of delivery she slipped out of the hospital and has not been heard from since. What tops the icing on this shit pie is the likelihood that if the mother had the inclination to, she probably has standing to sue for malpractice even though they were doing exactly what she asked of them and she's as, if not more so, culpable morally as any of them.

Update: 12/20/08

So I did some more sleuthing on Friday and I think I need to give those doctors an apology. Not entirely, but I think they were definitely more within their scope of practice than I had initially been told. What had actually occurred was not that the mother came in seeking an abortion, but came in with a story of abdominal pain, preterm premature rupture of membranes and likely chorioamnionitis. She hadn't wanted the pregnancy and had intended on a termination (she had had ten (TEN!) previous terminations on record) but that wasn't the reason she came in. The sono showed anhydramnios AND with their estimation of a previable fetus they decided to follow the course they did. If they hadn't induced labor then the fetus was likely to die anyway given the anhydramnios and the likely chorioamnionitis, and thereby also offer a serious risk to the mother.

What they still did wrongly though (imo), was in performing a poor estimation of the fetus' age - she was still significantly more than 24 weeks old and was indeed (obviously) viable - and then not having pediatrics in the room to perform a proper and timely resuscitation. So here it's less of a moral/legal issue and much more to do with simply poor management. All the same though, a terribly sad story all around.

Connections

2008-12-15T21:41:00.001-05:00

LNM writes: "I think a big part of this was that philosophically I had tied "doing mitzvos" directly to "serving god". For decades my attitude about Torah and Mitzvos was that everything we do is in the service of god. Light menorah? Because god wants us to. Shake the lulav? See god. Tie your shoes in the opposite order you put them on? god again."

My perspective:

Doing something in the mindset of "avodat Hashem" doesn't necessarily imply that "God wants us" to do anything. Think of all the times you do an act in honor or in respect or in memory for something or just to show your allegience to an ideal without a conception that the 'something' wanted it to be done.

The simple understanding of mitzvot is indeed 'commandment,' but there's also a strand in Chassidic thought (see Likkutei Torah, Parshas Bechukosai 45c) that it's related to the word 'tzaveh' - which means 'connection.' Jewish observance can therefrom be understood in part as a human-based effort to 'connect' with the transcendent.

So yeah, it depends completely on your approach and mindset, but shaking lulav for example can indeed be an attempt to connect with the divine by using it as a vehicle to raise your consciousness towards those ideals. This isn't to say that Jewish observance doesn't have it's great value as social activities and a cultural heritage, but I think this is a nice vort to put a little kavanah back into your actions.

Yom HaDin

2008-10-05T04:05:00.002-04:00

If there's one thing that troubles me about basic monotheistic theology is the idea of divine justice. Not that the idea is a bad one per se, but it just seems to fly so contrary to what I know about life and what goes on in the world that it makes it very hard for me to believe that justice reigns and that everyone gets it square in the end. When innocent children die painfully from genetic defects, murderous tyrants on the other side of the world live in luxury and at any time any regular shmo can die suddenly from a previously undiagnosed medical condition or a car accident or a stray bullet or a hurricane it certainly seems like what rules the roost in this world is mere chance rather than justice. At birth you're dealt a random hand and most of your life is played out with one roll of the dice after another. Sure, maybe you make some decisions on your own that set the course of your life, but there are larger forces in play that can wipe out all your plans in a moment.

Anyway, sure, this is an old old issue and there are always some stock answers that people pull out to reassure themselves. Maybe there's a Master Plan, maybe everything gets sorted out in the next life, maybe maybe maybe. Maybe not.

These were the thoughts that I had running through my mind all through davening on the first day of Rosh Hashana. See, my conception of God (in the abstract, non-anthropomorphic panentheist kinda way) certainly makes good sense of God as the almighty, as the creator, as the sustainer, as ruler, as awesome and fully worthy of reverence and praise. It also can make good sense of God being the source of an objective morality with schar and onesh following suit not as divine interventions, but as natural consequences of community behavior. I'll refrain from going into too much detail, but I see it in how moral action raises the net well being in a society and simultaneously betters the noble sense of self, whereas immoral behavior does the opposite. But still, how can I make account with the traditional conception of the Dayan Ha-emet given what I see of the world and my conception of a non-personal deity? In what sense does a panentheist God judge? And for that matter, in what sense can a panentheist God forgive?

So, as I was saying, I just could not get this out of my mind. What is the meaning of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur if not for the whole Yom HaDin thing?

To work my way through this dilemma I oriented myself to the idea that God doesn't judge per se, but that God is that moral standard against which we must judge ourselves. I think I went through this in a post last year about Yom Kippur, but whereas we might go easy on ourselves when considering our past actions, if we would imagine a perfectly reliable and righteous Judge considering our deeds we'd realize that we wouldn't get away with a fraction of what we'd permit ourselves. We then must judge ourselves to whether we are truly *worthy* of all the gifts given to us in our lives - and, yes, whether we deserve some comeuppance. Different people have different strengths - in this past year have you done all you could do to make this world a better place? I'm sorry to say it, but I know I haven't. Not that I'm a bad guy - or so I like to think of myself - but I've surely fallen short of what I could have done or what I could have been.

See, I believe in justice. I believe it is a characteristic set in the moral fabric of interpersonal relations. It is something we need to strive for, to struggle to achieve, rather than a fact of reality bestowed upon the universe. A common theme in Judaism is that humanity is co-creator with God. We have the potential to make justice have more impact on our existence than even chance. It is in our power and it is our duty.

So we're given a set time of some ten days at the start of the year to orient ourselves back to this basic task. And even if we were to judge ourselves unworthy we are given tools like teshuvah, tefilla and tzedaka to help change our mentality and to alter our behavior so that we can start the new year afresh with full potential. The purpose of these days is not to endlessly harp on our wrongdoings, but to do so only until we right what is wrong and become better people from that point on.

So with that conception in mind, an extended metaphor, I was able to finish davening with a clearer head - and I can look forward to a meaningful experience on Yom Kippur.

Kannoim Strong-arm Twerski Off Molestation Panel

2008-09-14T03:13:00.004-04:00

Top Doc Scared Off Panel On Rabbinic Sex Molesters
by Hella Winston

A prominent Orthodox rabbi and psychologist has been intimidated into quitting as head of a just-formed task force dealing with rabbinic sex abuse of minors, organized by Assemblyman Dov Hikind this week.

Dr. Benzion Twerski told The Jewish Week Wednesday that he was quitting the task force because “I was prosecuted in the street for daring to join such a venture.”

“To protect myself, my family, and reputation, I decided to withdraw from this project,” he wrote in an e-mail as the paper was going to press with a story announcing Hikind’s formation of the task force. “From this point, I am avoiding participation in any forms of public service. Public life is not for me.”

Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat who represents Borough Park and Flatbush, deplored Twerski’s abrupt departure from his new panel.

“He was basically forced to resign,” said Hikind. “He was literally put against the wall, and he felt he had no choice. We’ll get somebody else who’s very respected. But that’s not the point. The point is they got to him, they threatened him.”

Twerski’s dramatic departure came just as Hikind was rolling out the new panel, planned as the next step in a personal crusade against child sex abuse in the Orthodox community that he has come to view as an epidemic.

Hikind said he had amassed a dossier with the cases of “hundreds” of individuals who say they have been sexually molested by rabbis and other Orthodox community members during their childhood. And he threatened to broadcast the names of their abusers if community leaders do not respond to his call for action against them.

“Let me tell you,” he said in an interview last week, “when there’s a person who we have confirmed through a variety of people has been doing terrible things” and those who know refuse to go to the authorities, “I am prepared to name names. I am prepared to be sued by those pedophiles. If they’re innocent, let them sue me.”

...
Neither man would specify the nature of the threats made against Twerski to force his departure. But Hikind called them “pathetic and sad.”

“My heart goes out to him,” he said. “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. Things are opening up, people are coming forward, but we are still so far away.”

This story is absolutely pathetic. I really hate what those self-important holier-than-thou protectors of child molesters are doing. Friggin' Taliban Kannoim. Somehow in their screwed up little minds, they think making a serious attempt to put a stop to rabbinical child abuse is somehow a potential damage to their community. Their priorities are totally screwed up and each person who pressured Dr. Twerski - or frankly aided or abetted this apparent policy of secrecy and cover-up generally - is morally responsible for each and every child molested since their obstruction of justice. Make no mistake, that is what they are doing and by right they ought to have their own seats right next to the actual molesters when they have their day in court. Utterly disgusting.

On the bright side though, I'm very glad to see Dov Hikind stepping up to the plate on this one. I'm surprised to see it, since I've generally not been impressed with his public service to date, but I give credit where credit is due. Frankly, I'm glad to see people of some note making motions to control this festering disease deep in the underbelly of the Orthodox community.

קָצַפְתָּ עָלֵינוּ עַד-מְאֹד

2008-08-10T00:39:00.004-04:00

As I often do following the night's reading of Eicha, since my shul only has these ancient kinot booklets instead of real books, I looked it up in the English in order to get a better understanding of what was read. I have a passing understanding of Biblical Hebrew, but to really get at the little phrases and deeper meanings some further examination with a translation is helpful. Anyway, I found something interesting that I hadn't noticed before.

The final couple of pasukim from the megillah are as so:

כא: הֲשִׁיבֵנוּ יְהוָה אֵלֶיךָ ונשוב (וְנָשׁוּבָה) חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כְּקֶדֶם. כב: כִּי אִם-מָאֹס מְאַסְתָּנוּ קָצַפְתָּ עָלֵינוּ עַד-מְאֹד

Which mean, according to my understanding, '21: Bring us back to you, God, and we shall return, renew our days as of old. 22: For even if you totally rejected us, you have exceedingly raged against us.' The point being - we've been punished enough and it's cold outside, let us back in and we'll be good.' The Artscroll translation basically agrees with this assessment - 'For even if You had utterly rejected us, You have already raged sufficiently against us.'

But what I had been reading initally was, I confess, not the Artscroll but rather the NIV, which goes:

21 Restore us to yourself, O LORD, that we may return; renew our days as of old 22 unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.

Now that certainly gives the whole thing a different flavor, doesn't it? UNLESS? Clearly, in the Christian mindset there's a distinct possibility that God may have rejected the Jewish people and thereby explaining the whole reason for their religion. God needs to outsource his message since his chosen company isn't being reliable.

This is even more clearly seen in the older King James Version which I subsequently reviewed out of curiousity:

21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old. 22But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.

BUT? Here the Christian assessment is that hope is lost for the Jews. God has rejected them utterly.

Ok, so that's an interesting little tidbit about the basic historical Christian understanding of Jewish persecution, but let's hear a nice dvar about this whole fasting deal in the face of theological skepticism.

Sure. See, a great thing about these terrible days is that few skeptics doubt that what they describe actually happened - at least not in any foundational detail. The Temples were destroyed, many Israelites were killed, the people were exiled or enslaved and basically the Jews were on the losing side of overwhelming ancient conquests. All of this before the adoption of the Geneva conventions. But what about the theological implications traditionally employed? Did God really [literally] send Babylon and Rome as means of punishing the sinning Jews?

Well, here's my take on it. While I wouldn't say that God plotted out the rise of those nations to pour out his wrath in such and such a way, but that to a certain extent a society's welfare is bound directly to the moral standards of its people and its leaders. When corruption abounds, when the rich abuse the poor, when brother cannot trust brother and the whole edifice of civilized society is on the brink then that decadent society has become weak at its heart and can be easily overcome by outside pressures - especially by foreign invasion. Isaiah, as related in this past haftorah, particularly remarks on the failings of the corrupt leadership and we are all familiar with the classic sinat chinam before the fall of the Second Temple. These things are cancers of society.

So with that, we have the traditional Jewish approach of following a tragedy with mussar. We look into ourselves to see what we can improve to perhaps prevent anything like it from happening again. I think this is a great approach. Producing something morally constructive out of something terrible. But we shouldn't be thinking of it in terms of satisfying a metaphysical Umpire (though perhaps metaphorically), rather it should be seen as a proactive effort to strengthen our moral ties to each other and to society at large. We can prevent the threat of moral decadence and the dangers it poses to society in general.

Informed Consent for HIV Testing

2008-07-30T00:57:00.003-04:00

This is a topic that's bothered me for some time. In most US states it is state law that HIV testing first requires the patient's (often written) informed consent - this is STUPID. See, even while you would think most people suspected for HIV would eagerly want to know if they were infected and then change their behavior to help their own health and protect the people around them there remains a significant population who frankly prefer to remain ignorant - or at least maintain their denial. The fact is that the population of people who tend to get HIV are those who are not very health conscious and engage in risky behavior like having unprotected sex with multiple casual partners, especially men who have sex with men, and share needles for their drug habits. These are people who prefer living life as if there are no consequences and I don't think medical ethics demands that we kowtow to their preferences and permit them to remain nominally ignorant as they remain a public health threat.

As far as I know, for every other infectious disease it is standard policy in America to assume presumed consent by the patient and test at will unless the patient proactively refuses. You don't need informed consent to test for hepatitis or Lyme disease or syphilis, so why HIV? Now I know why HIV has been put in this special legal bubble. It was once upon a time an incredibly scary disease, poorly understood with severe social stigma and no real treatment, so it made sense to protect a population which had little interest in finding out they had a death sentence. Few of them would seek medical care generally if they knew they'd be forced to face the horrible truth.

Fair enough, but that was decades ago and now with proper treatement HIV is more of a chronic disease. Infected individuals can lead a fairly normal life. What was once sensible medical policy is now obstructive to getting this life saving treatment to people and is a real threat to the public. People should be routinely tested if they are suspected of HIV, need to be told sooner rather than later and face their fears so they can get the treatment they need. (Whether they ought to be penalized if they don't subsequently change their behavior vis-a-vis public health concerns is another question. After all, STDs are essentially behavioral disorders more than anything else.)

As some have noted, I haven't been doing much blogging this past little while and the reason for this is that I just started doing my clinical rotations at med school and as you may imagine that tends to take up some time. For the past six weeks or so, I've been working at a hospital in the Bronx where HIV is more prevalent than the common cold in the inpatient population. Zero exaggeration. There were times when easily more than half the patients on our service were known to be HIV positive. And if not HIV then you can be sure as the ever hopeful Obamanicks that the patient has got hepatitis. Maybe I'm getting a poor cross section, but it seems like you can hardly throw a rock in the Bronx without hitting a person with a severe, chronic infectious disease.

Anyway, while I had been thinking that way about HIV for a good while, what really hit the point home was a patient I've been following. Guy came in for some difficulty breathing over the course of several weeks and was found to have an AIDS defining pneumonia that only the immunocompromised can get and a CD4 count in the single digits. Patient refused HIV testing. His wife communicates with the doctors by telephone about his condition and she's casually complaining about how she used to be such a healthy person but lately she's been feeling sick. Hum...

So normally, with a positive HIV test, you can break with normative patient/doctor confidentiality and inform the spouse that their sexual partner has HIV if you have reason to believe the spouse won't do the informing on their own. But because this guy is refusing testing, the doctors can't legally label the patient as HIV+ even while he's being treated with a clinically AIDS-defining pneumonia and therefore cannot tell the wife. Welcome to the world of medico-legal meshugas. Anyway, what we ended up doing was telling the wife to tell her family doctor that her husband is being treated for a pneumonia with this and that drug regimen, which any astute physician would immediately understand to be HIV related and have her follow up with him. Hopefully that'll work out as best it can.

Of interest, it seems like the CDC recently came closer to my way of thinking and as of 2006 their recommendations are:

-HIV screening (another term for broad-based testing) for patients ages 13 to 64 in all healthcare settings after the patient is notified that testing will be performed unless the patient declines (opt-out screening).
-HIV testing of people at high risk for HIV infection at least once a year.
-Screening should be incorporated into the general consent for medical care; separate written consent is not recommended.

Now, I'm for the total normalization of HIV testing to be like other infectious diseases. If the patient is in the hospital then you can just test their blood for whatever without special notification. We don't tell patients that we're testing for hepatitis - which we do test for regularly. HIV should not be treated like a legally special condition and it's time for the state legislatures to get on the ball with this one.

An Atheist Questionnaire

2008-06-29T22:15:00.002-04:00

I was tagged by Da'as Hedyot, so I guess I'll do my blogging duty.

Q1. How would you define "atheism"?

Strictly as simply the lack of belief in gods. But in general, practically for those who take the title, it subsumes a whole series of assumptions about humanity and our relationship with the rest of reality. The basic worldview asserts that the universe was an accident without consequence or meaning. Humans exist purely by luck and our interaction with the rest of reality doesn't go beyond it being merely the otherwise irrelevant backdrop for the navel-gazing human drama to play out. Morality is subjective (and therefore is without any means of authority to orient right from wrong).

That, in the end, we are all nothing (ala Hawking) but the chemical scum placed on a moderate-size planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

Blah, blah. Everyone knows about this already. Modern OJ, relatively chilled.

Q3. How would you describe "Intelligent Design", using only one word?

Pseudoscience.

Q4. What scientific endeavor(s) really excites you?

Space exploration. Biological systems. Deep-time evolution.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the "atheist community", what would it be and why?

To stop defining themselves by what they are not. It's terrible when the only way they seem to be able to progress their cause is by attacking the alternatives. Not that the method doesn't have its place, but the "atheist community" seems far too sure of its worldview which it only reached by denying the views of others.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said "I'm joining the clergy", what would be your first response?

Alright, just make sure you don't get so frum that you won't eat in my house anymore.

Q7. What's your favorite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

Meh. I'm so bored with that endless debate. Generally it's a matter of someone asserting something about God and I just say, "Oh, how do you know that impossible to know thing?"

Q8. What's your most "controversial" (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

I'm not an atheist. That tends to get 'em riled up and remarkably few seem to comprehend the significant gradations between I and some Biblical literalist.

Q9. Of the "Four Horsemen" (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favorite, and why?

I like Dawkins. Actually I liked him before he became a militant atheist performer since I appreciate his contributions to evolution, but even so he's great with the turn of phrase and he makes his points with excellent clarity. Harris though seems to be the most reasonable-sounding of the bunch.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

Hmm. I really don't care all that much. How about the next virgin-addled pro-murderer before he completes his massacre?

Hoc est Pocus

2008-06-29T22:01:00.003-04:00

I found this absolute gem when I was reading "When They Severed Earth from Sky" (y'know, the book that describes the mentality of mythmaking and how the seemingly strange stories were actually invested with good data in the absence of a literate public).

Page 135: "Hocus Pocus is a mutilation(!) of the Eucharistic phrase Hoc est corpus [meum], "This is [my] body."

I don't know if this is true or not, but it's a brilliant little insight for a common subversive streak of a society dutifully unimpressed by the Church's magic of transubstantiation.

I just had to share.

Anim Zemirot

2008-06-24T23:16:00.003-04:00

Think about it:

Sweet hymns shall be my chant and woven songs,
For Thou art all for which my spirit longs--
To be within the shadow of Thy hand
And all Thy mystery to understand.
The while Thy glory is upon my tongue,
My inmost heart with love of thee is wrung,
So though Thy mighty marvels I proclaim,
'Tis songs of love wherewith I greet Thy name.

I have not seen Thee, yet I tell Thy praise,
Nor known Thee, yet I image forth Thy ways.
For by Thy seers' and servants' mystic speech
Thou didst Thy sov'ran splendour darkly teach,
And from the grandeur of Thy work they drew
The measure of Thy inner greatness, too.
They told of Thee, but not as Thou must be,
Since from Thy work they tried to body Thee.
To countless visions did their pictures run,
Behold through all the visions Thou art one.

Better than Artscroll.

Confucius say "Follow Halacha"

2008-06-12T18:01:00.005-04:00

Yen Yuan asked about benevolence. The Master [Confucius] said, 'To return to the observance of the rites through overcoming the self constitutes benevolence. If for a single day a man could return to the observance of the rites through overcoming himself, then the whole Empire would consider benevolence to be his. However, the practice of benevolence depends on oneself alone, and not on others.'

Yen Yuan said, 'I should like you to list the items.'

The Master said, 'Do not look unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not listen unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not speak unless it is in accordance with the rites; do not move unless it is in accordance with the rites.'

-Lun Yu (The Analects), 12:1

Interesting: this symbol of Confucianism means "total harmony, righteousness, in your own life and in your relations with your neighbor." Reminiscent of a couple of familiar tablets, eh?

Twain

2008-05-21T22:22:00.003-04:00

Amusing:

"Speaking of concentration, Dr. Herzl has a clear insight into the value of that. Have you heard of his plan? He wishes to gather the Jews of the world together in Palestine, with a government of their own -- under the suzerainty of the Sultan, I suppose. At the convention of Berne, last year, there were delegates from everywhere, and the proposal was received with decided favor. I am not the Sultan, and I am not objecting; but if that concentration of the cunningest brains in the world was going to be made in a free country (bar Scotland), I think it would be politic to stop it. It will not be well to let that race find out its strength. If the horses knew theirs, we should not ride any more."

Ironic:

"Will the persecution of the Jews ever come to an end?"
On the score of religion, I think it has already come to an end. On the score of race prejudice and trade, I have the idea that it will continue. That is, here and there in spots about the world, where a barbarous ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilization prevail; but I do not think that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear of being robbed and raided. Among the high civilizations he seems to be very comfortably situated indeed, and to have more than his proportionate share of the prosperities going. It has that look in Vienna. I suppose the race prejudice cannot be removed; but he can stand that; it is no particular matter."

Profound:

"If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of; but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world`s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?"

-All from "Concerning the Jews"

Relevant:

"I will set down a tale as it was told to me by one who had it of his father, which latter had it of his father, this last having in like manner had it of his father- and so on, back and still back, three hundred years and more, the fathers transmitting it to the sons and so preserving it. It may be history, it may be only legend, a tradition. It may have happened, it may not have happened: but it could have happened. It may be that the wise and the learned believed it in the old days; it may be that only the unlearned and the simple loved it and credited it."

- Intro,"The Prince and the Pauper"

Passover at the Finkelsteins

2008-05-19T21:42:00.002-04:00

"I am a great believer in a total separation between tradition and research. I myself have a warm spot in my heart for the Bible and its splendid stories. During our Pesach seder, my two girls, who are 11 and 7, didn't hear a word about the fact that there was no exodus from Egypt. When they are 25, we will tell them a different story. Belief, tradition and research are three parallel lines that can exist simultaneously. I don't see that as a gross contradiction."

-Israel Finkelstein

How about that. The arch-skeptic Biblical minimalist has a traditional Pesach seder. Interesting how there are so many others who refuse to do so based significantly on his work.

Israelites Came From...?

2008-05-18T18:45:00.002-04:00

Here is a short article on possible contemporary answers.

None of them particularly blow me away, but a tweaked Albrecht Alt 'infiltration' model seems to be the idea most consistent with the physical evidence and coherent with the stories in Tanach. Various Hebrew tribes entered the land more or less peacefully and settled primarily in the empty highlands (as is coherent with Judges and the archeological data). Perhaps they were associated or identified with the Hyksos who were chased out of Egypt in the 16th century BCE - so perhaps they did come from Egypt, though perhaps they came from other regions. These Hebrews eventually joined forces under a new religious vision imported from the south by a group of escaped Hebrew slaves and the Israelites as we know them were founded.

Mesorah

2008-05-14T01:53:00.001-04:00

"Joshua son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died at the age of a hundred and ten. And they buried him in the land of his inheritance, at Timnath Heres in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash.

After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals..."

-Judges 2:8-11

The Discovery of Law

2008-05-04T03:58:00.001-04:00

"Men do not make laws. They do but discover them. Laws must be justified by something more than the will of the majority. They must rest on the eternal foundation of righteousness. That state is most fortunate in its form of government which has the aptest instruments for the discovery of laws. The latest, most modern, and nearest perfect system that statesmanship has devised is representative government."

-Calvin Coolidge

(How comes people don't talk this way anymore?)

Two Minutes

2008-05-01T15:53:00.000-04:00

Carter and Hamas, BFF

2008-04-29T14:21:00.003-04:00

Hmm, should Israel follow Carter's lead?

אִישׁ חָמָס יְפַתֶּה רֵעֵהוּ וְהוֹלִיכוֹ בְּדֶרֶךְ לֹא-טוֹב

"A man of Hamas entices his neighbor and leads him on a way that is not good."
- Proverbs 16:29

I always found it an ironic coincidence that Hamas would choose a name for themselves that was so apropo.

For your consideration:

2008-04-24T19:54:00.006-04:00

There is a thing, formless yet complete.
Before heaven and earth it existed.
Without sound, without substance, it stands alone and unchanging.
It is all-pervading and unfailing.
One may think of it as the mother of all beneath Heaven.
We do not know its name, but we call it Tao.

Deep and still, it seems to have existed forever.

-Lao Tzu

See more on philosophical Taoism and on pan(en)theism generally.

Moral Methods

2008-04-16T21:14:00.003-04:00

So I've just been having this extended debate (as typical on GH's site) with several other people on the nature of morality and how we ought to go about ascertaining correct action. So the typical theist's assertion is that only God has the authority to determine what is moral and what is not - human-based reason is subjective and without authority.

Now the fact is that I believe in an objective morality because otherwise there's no point in discussing morality. If it's all subjective then everyone does what they wants and nobody has any authority to tell others what to do. So if you're going to meaningfully discuss morality then you need to presume that there is an objective morality to which we ought to conform our behavior. Whether this objective morality involves God in some way is really not the issue here. I'm inclined to say 'yes' - assuming God is involved in all things, but I'm not prepared to say that God wrote a list and told it to any particular group of humans. I believe we can make a kind of science of ethics and determine correct action as best we can through applying the tools of reason and logic, as well as relying to a certain degree on intuition, historical study, and whatever else may be relevant. This science is objective and ought to be compelling in argument - so it has some authority.

Now the difference between the orthodox religious person and I is that they believe in a whole theology through which they claim to know God's moral will. Revelation. They don't claim to use reason or logic - they have divine revelation telling them what's right and what's wrong. Wow. I mean that semi-seriously too because it would be really convenient to have a perfect being telling me what's what. A lot of that pesky moral uncertainty would vanish and it has a boatload of authority. But an issue arises - the same one as always - how do they know this revelation is true?

If they say that they rely on faith - then seriously WTF? The Halachic system proposes things like killing people for lighting matches on the Sabbath - how can you dare to condemn a man to death (even theoretically) for something which you have zero rational reason to suggest is true? Those who rely on faith are ontologically unsophisticated and and ethically negligent. How can they be any different from any other religious nut who claims - based on faith - to have God's backing for any kind of evil you could imagine?!

But suppose the religious person believes they have reasonable arguments for their belief system. Ok, so maybe they aren't as negligent. They may be entirely wrong and thereby supporting bad ethics, but at least they're trying to dutifully ascertain righteousness. But you see the issue already don't you? If they are relying on _reason_ to help them out ontologically how is that intrisically different from my system of ethics which relies on _reason_ to determine morality? They both rely on human reason, which is subjective and without authority as far as the theist is concerned.

Cripes!

So I asked one of the theists on GH's blog, would you be willing (assuming he lived in a time and place where it were possible) to execute a man for lighting a match on the Sabbath? And he, after extensive digressions and diversions, finally admitted that he would! He claimed to have reasonable circumstantial evidence for believing in Orthodoxy and was then prepared to accept the Halachic system as-is. But, wait a second - he's relying on circumstantial evidence to promote a system where he executes a man for ritual offenses? He'd kill based solely on circumstantial evidence! Wow! As per Halacha, a Jewish court certainly needs more than that in order to convict and execute.

My point here is that in order to support a revelation-based moral system that can execute for ritual offenses you need to be as certain as a capital-offense jury verdict that the whole system is valid before you can possibly be willing to execute a man based on it. We're talking 99++% certainty here. Could you convince a jury of your peers of your religious beliefs? If you aren't that certain then you are deep in moral turpitude to be willing (even theoretically) to execute people based on it.

Who among the Jbloggers are so certain? RJM? Bueller?

Now I willingly admit that my methodology of asertaining correct action is limited. Human reason is not perfect and so I believe we ought to take a conservative approach to ethics and not get too bowled over by the rhetoric of guys like Peter Singer who suggest that infanticide is justifiable. Yet at the same time, it must be noted that it is the best tool we've got. This is in wild contradistinction to the likes of religious ethics which are as reasonably based as the Hamas manifesto. An Orthodox Jew cannot convince the Hamas guy that his actions are irrational or wrong because it's just a matter of dogma vs dogma. They both believe in their moral system based on a claimed revelation. They are on precisely equal playing fields and the debate becomes a tawdry argument over theology. But if we could inject a little reason into the discussion and make people justify their actions on reasonable grounds then maybe some progress could be made.

Origins

2008-04-11T01:30:00.002-04:00

I think, more than anything about Judaism that fascinates me to no end is the question of origins. Naturally this includes the big questions about the universe, the Jewish people, the Torah and so on - but also the relatively smaller questions. Why was pork forbidden as an unclean animal? What is tzitzit? Why circumcision? Why Shabbos? Who wrote this or that prayer and what does it mean? Why do we fast on Ta'anit Esther? Why don't we cut our hair during Sfira?

What is often most fascinating about all this is the very different answers you may get from traditional sources as compared to academic scholarship, assuming the origins aren't lost in the sands of time. As I brought the question up recently on XGH's blog - why is Chanukah eight days long? The Talmud says because the oil miraculously lasted that long. What says historical sources like 2 Maccabees? Because they were celebrating Succos in Kislev. Back in Tishrei when they were at war, the Temple was impure and they couldn't do it properly so they translated the eight days of Succos + Shmini Atzeret into Kislev and established a holiday. Understanding the true origins of a practice usually makes it that much more meaningful.

Anyway, I was wondering recently about the origins of the feather, wooden spoon, and candle deal that is traditionally used for bedikat chametz. I figure it's probably kabbalistic, but I haven't been able to track it down. What are the objects supposed to signify? A gold star to whomever can give me the answer.

Choosing Observance

2008-04-01T04:10:00.003-04:00

Found an interesting blog run by a Conservative convert who seeks a community with an observance level beyond what is commonly performed by the relatively lax Conservative world. Amazing how the two of us came from very different perspectives but seem to hold a few key considerations in common:

"However, what I’ve come to realize is that I am becoming something of an “out of the shul Jew”. What I mean by that is that my sense of Judaism isn’t just grounded in official synagogue study and activities. Rather I increasingly experience my Judaism outside of the shul. For example first thing in the morning when I get up and wash my hands, recite morning blessings, put on one of my Tallit Katan and force (yes sometimes those first few minutes are excruciatingly difficult) my way into the living room to daven Shacharit. I can feel my Jewishness bubbling up through my keeping kosher even when it’s difficult. I certainly feel it when Shabbos is made sacred and I’m not talking about going to shul because that’s the easy part. It’s in the preparing of a lovely table and putting on nice clothing before Shabbos starts, then sharing a Sabbath Seder with friends. I can feel my Jewishness in the struggle to stay out of the car, off the computer and television and in not spending money for 25 hours. I feel my Judaism deeply when walking down the street sporting a Kippah and someone gives me a smart ass remark. I feel like a Jew every time I manage to make even the smallest sacrifice, out of a sense of commitment to observance. Especially during those times when no one is watching and I could get away with cheating ,if I wanted to. I feel my Judaism every time I act from a place of loving kindness and I feel it when I miss the boat by falling into Loshon Hara but am able to catch myself even if it’s after-the-fact and do Teshuvah.

Am I being a little self-important and self obsessed, maybe so, but I’m not sure if that’s such a bad thing. I don’t want synagogue affiliation or even denominational affiliation to be my primary source of Jewish identity. I want it to be observance and more importantly, I want to be in an environment that supports that kind of lifestyle."

-Link

Who Knows Thirteen?

2008-03-13T18:43:00.003-04:00

I live in a building that has no 13th floor. And the hospital where I take a clinical course also has no 13th floor. Obviously this isn't because the buildings are short, but rather because of the common superstitious fear of the number thirteen. They go right from 12 to 14. This always struck me as rather amusing given that from a Jewish perspective 13 is actually a good number. Think Bar Mitzvah, 13 Attributes of God, 613 mitzvot and even the Rambam's 13 Principles of Faith.

Anyway, I just found out recently that in some East Asian nations the number 4 is feared. (Though, again, Judaism has a number of positive connotations for the number 4. Are there any bad numbers in Judaism?) This is because the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean words for four also sound like the word for death. So buildings in those countries tend to likewise skip floors 4, 14, 24, etc.

And then I saw this picture (from wiki) which made me laugh. It's from an elevator in a building in Shanghai, which is apparently a melting pot of the world's superstitions:

Mishe Mishe Mishenichnas Adar

2008-03-08T22:55:00.001-05:00

Will Lipa still be able to sing this song?

James Kugel on Orthopraxy

2008-03-07T01:57:00.004-05:00

DH: I just finished "The God of Old" and found it to be an enlightening, if rather speculative, insight into the Biblical minds of old. I also intend on reading your newest work when I get the opportunity.

But the real reason I'm writing you is not for the quality of your work ... but of the curious juxtaposition of it to your ostensible Orthodoxy. Frankly, I do not understand how the same man who intellectually deconstructs the very human pathways that lead to modern Orthodox Judaism can at the same time hold belief in their immutable correctness. I do not mean to sound accusatory in the least - and I know you probably already get flak from all directions about this - but is what you really believe "Orthodox" as you could find described in some dictionary or recognized rabbinical treatise, or rather is it a kind of self-styled religious philosophy that maintains *Orthopraxy* as proper Jewish behavior?

That may be mere splitting of hairs for some, but as I am an individual who (I think, like you) is very interested in maintaining traditional Jewish observance, I am struck by the gross untenability of typical Orthodox beliefs in the face of modern scholarship from numerous fields. I should also mention that I was raised Modern Orthodox and have maintained general observance even while my philosophical and scholarly thoughts have strayed, as it were. The great trick of course would be how to open the eyes of so many of our observant co-religionists without prompting disillusionment and a tumbling of the Halachic system - assuming such a feat were even possible and assuming we ought to even be interested in carrying out such philosophical revolutions.

In the meantime, as I count myself among the "Orthodox" as a sociological identity, I often encounter difficulties where what I have learned through modern scholarship contradict established tradition. Indeed, when the Torah is raised at hagbah, should I say along with the congregation that “This is the Torah that Moses placed before the people of Israel at the command of the Lord through Moses”? Clearly modern Bible scholars like yourself would say that even if Moshe did write a Torah, the modern Pentateuch we have raised before us is not it.

I'm not exactly sure what I am asking of you here and it may even be inappropriate (and if so, then you have my apologies) but how do you engage the philosophical difficulties that lie between living our traditional observances and the generally poorly informed beliefs of so many whom we observe them with? Is there a philosophical or theological or sociological endpoint to seek or should each man merely find their place between skepticism and traditionalism and hope the great Jewish masses will one day raise their minds from the merely Medieval?

Practically, how much does traditional Judaism need to adapt so to honestly assimilate these intellectual elephants sitting in the living room? In ironic form, can these elephants become kosher?

JK: Well, that is the question. I did try to address it in a few pages of the last chapter of HOW TO READ THE BIBLE, but judging by people's reaction, I obviously need to do more. (I didn't go into more detail there because that book is not really aimed at Orthodox Jews, or even Jews in general, and it is not, despite what a lot of my correspondents seem to think, a kind of personal confession. It's really a book about the Bible.)

I suppose the longer answer that I might write some day would start by saying that I really don't buy into the distinction between "Orthodoxy" and "Orthopraxy" that you, and a lot of other people, invoke. An Orthodox Jew isn't just someone with the right "doxy," the right ideas; you wouldn't call someone "Orthodox" who sincerely believes that the Torah was given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai and fervently upholds his faith in the resurrection of the dead etc., but who does not keep Shabbat or the rules of kosher food.

In a subtler way, I think the opposite is also true. I've heard lately from a lot of people who say that they like the "Orthodox life style," but that they are only "Orthoprax" and not "Orthodox." I hope that's not really true. As you know, Judaism is notoriously long on deeds and short on doctrine; still, I can't imagine that any such "Orthopraxy" can be pursued in the long run by someone who doesn't have some basic belief in H' and in the connection between that belief and all the "deeds" of his or her Orthopraxy.

Rather, I think what such people mean is that they have difficulty accepting one or another of the traditional teachings of Judaism: they are bothered by what you call the “gross untenability of typical Orthodox beliefs in the face of modern scholarship from numerous fields.” I certainly understand what you, and they, mean. It seems intellectually dishonest to – if I can reverse the contemporary cliché -- walk the walk (not a bad way of referring in English to keeping the halakhah) while at the same time mumbling when it comes time to talk the talk, that is, affirming those traditional beliefs that seem to clash with modern knowledge. So what to do?

You may say I’m chickening out, but I’ve always been a fairly conservative person, certainly when it comes to throwing off traditional teachings (though some of my readers may doubt this). I would never want to announce to anyone, “Forget about that mitzvah,” or, by the same token, “This specific belief isn’t really important.” I think history teaches that people who start down the road of public rejection of this or that specific thing rarely stop there.

But history does have another lesson, and that’s the one I would highlight. Most of the “creedal statements” of Judaism were originally made in opposition to something or someone. That is, the very enterprise of formulating the "musts" of Jewish belief in rabbinic times arose out of doctrinal differences among the various Jewish groups that flourished before 70 C.E., or later on, as a result of the rise of certain changes in the Jewish world (Karaism, e. g.) or the world in general. The point of these affirmations of belief often was: If you want to be with "us," you can't uphold what "they" say or do. But situations do change, and so do (eventually) the things people feel it essential to assert. As I'm sure you know, the Mishnah (perek Helek) specifies a few things that Jews are to believe in or lose their portion in the world to come. The list of essential beliefs was considerably expanded when Maimonides (not unopposed) introduced his Thirteen Principles. After his time, other things did get added from time to time (creatio ex nihilo, for example, or free will), while some of the earlier items were dropped. You might look at the wonderful article by the late Professor Alexander Altmann,"Articles of Faith," in the Encyclopedia Judaica. So certainly one lesson of history is that at least some of these affirmations were not written in stone.

Added to this is what history teaches about the actual application of various orthodoxies to real life. Even when things don’t change de jure, they sometimes change de facto. For example, that same chapter in the Mishnah says a Jew must not read from the "sefarim ha-hitzonim," and even if the Mishnah doesn't say exactly what those books are, it seems likely that that rubric includes at least some of the writings studied in courses currently given by Orthodox professors at Yeshiva University or Bar Ilan; indeed, a number of Orthodox posekim have explicitly ruled that this prohibition is no longer in effect, because times have changed. This is, I admit, a fairly small example of what you call “the Jewish masses rais[ing] their minds from the merely medieval,” but it did happen. (We’re talking about doctrine; I’m sure you can think of numerous examples in the domain of halakhah lema’aseh.) On a somewhat different plane, the use of
amulets (kame'ot) for quasi-magical purposes, or the attribution ofmagical powers to mezuzot -- both of which, I’m afraid, are quite common in Israel today -- suggest beliefs that are clearly at odds with Jewish doctrine as formulated in the Torah, Mishnah, and by numerous later authorities. But these things do go on, and they are actually almost never denounced as heretical; in fact, they are espoused and practiced by prominent rabbinic figures. So I'm not sure that, in any descriptive (rather than prescriptive) definition of Orthodox Judaism, all required and prohibited beliefs are treated equally.

In saying all this, I'm not looking for a back door out of what I take to be Judaism's basic doctrine about the Torah, namely, "Torah min ha-shamayim." There's nothing in my book (or in me) that denies that belief. As I've written several times, words are words, and there is no litmus test that modern biblical scholars could ever perform to determine that this word was divinely inspired and that word was not. But in my book I did try to put the whole doctrine of a divinely-given Torah in a somewhat different perspective, which, since you say you haven’t yet read the book, I might summarize here:

What I tried to show was that, at a certain point within the biblical period, the religion of Israel suddenly changed (I would say "as if by revelation," except that I don't mean the "as if"). Now, "avodat H'" was no longer principally understood as the offering of korbanot in the
Temple, but the keeping of God's numerous laws. This is evident within the Bible itself, and the trajectory of avodat H' as presented in the Torah carries over into all the later stages of Judaism, even in such perfectly human activities as writing piskei halakhah (or, for that matter, formulating lists of required beliefs). Keeping the mitzvot is the way that Jews seek to reach out to H', and I would make no exception in this for people who define themselves as "Orthoprax." It can't just be a matter of lifestyle.

So... The point of this rather long-winded answer is that people who devote themselves fully to keeping the mitzvot are, at least by my definition, Orthodox in the true sense of the word: they have grasped what is essential in Judaism, avodat H', and they are living it. All those mitzvot have a single trajectory, from the Torah itself through centuries and centuries of human interpreters, the makers of midrash halakhah and aggadah, takkanot and gezerot shavot and piskei halakhah, down to the present day. I think someone who truly understands this will not be troubled by the things you mention.

Barbs in Your Eyes, Thorns in Your Sides

2008-03-02T17:34:00.003-05:00

Alright, here were are again in July 2006. Hundreds of rockets are being shot indiscriminately at Israeli civilians from Islamic terrorists from lands recently vacated by Israeli troops. The UN, EU, Muslim countries, watchdog groups, the Pope and your leftist mother are clamoring to morally undermine Israel and her absolute right to defend herself by tying Israel's arms behind her back with calls for proportionate response and an immediate end to the violence.

How typical. Where the hell were these people for the last forever when Hamas was doing its best to provoke Israel by targeting civilians with these rockets? "Suck it up" they say to Israel. How tolerant do you think any other country in the world would be to a constant barrage of rockets falling on their border towns? Double standard BS.

This endless fighting with Gaza and Hamas is deeply absurd. You let Hamas fire endlessly at Israeli citizens and the Gazans celebrate Hamas for fighting against the Zionists and Israelis die. If you fight back against Hamas then Israeli soldiers die in the fighting, Hamas militants hide among the civilians, Gazan civilians die, the people rally around Hamas for fighting for them and world opinion turns on Israel. Hamas has no interest in building a Palestinian nation. They love anarchy and destruction because it only fuels their power and ability to harm Israel.

What the hell are you supposed to do with these kinds of people?

It's times like these that I am sorely tempted by ideas that involve transferring the Gazan population somewhere else. I don't care where, but if these people can't live peacefully next door then why should Israel have to tolerate them? What kind of world is this? At no other place or time in history has a weaker party been the aggressor with such aplomb. They fear no real consequences because the world won't let there be any. And they call it a Holocaust! The world not just allows, but actively enables this conflict to fester and fester.

"This is what the LORD says: 'For three sins of Gaza, even for four, I will not turn back my wrath . Because she took captive whole communities and sold them to Edom, I will send fire upon the walls of Gaza that will consume her fortresses.'" - Amos 1:6-7

On the Question of Meaning

2008-02-22T01:33:00.004-05:00

Littlefoxling wrote a recent post on the issue of meaning and I've been giving it some thought of late. (Not that I have the time for this and it is eating away at my studying, but that help explains why I'm writing this post at 2 am.)

Essentially you have two general approaches to finding meaning in life. The first is for meaning to be found in something bigger than oneself. This includes the classic religious approach where meaning is found in being a part of God's master plan and each of us have a mission in life for which we were specifically created. We also see this in the more secular nationalism or humanism where the good for society or humanity in toto is the good to which one's life is given meaning. It is in service to the public good to which our life is worthwhile. These two aspects are not incompatible and indeed we often see political leaders (Republicans typically) who invoke their belief that their public service is their place in God's plan or that they sought to serve the public because they believed they could further God's plan.

The second approach for meaning seekers is introverted and is the classic view of existential philosophy. They say that the rest of the world is impossible to value objectively and therefore obtaining a sense of meaning from a valueless externality is hopeless - vanity, as it were. So the Existentialists seek to understand themselves as subjective beings and best authenticate their lives with integrity. I am who I am and being true to myself is the meaning of my existence.

It's interesting how both of these paths are essentially non-materialistic, if well applied. Seeking God's will or the common good obviously transcends the immediate desires for creature comforts, but even existential authentication retreats from "selling out" or becoming an empty cog in the machine. If you are familiar with the movie Fight Club or Randian protagonists, you may recognize this theme. But I'm not trying to intimate that one path leads to global prosperity and the other to violent anarchy, but that both depends on the underlying ideas behind these theories. If God is good then finding meaning through God will lead to good. If you find your authentic existence is to be a good person then it too will lead to good. These may both be reversed if you're contemplating joining Al Qaeda.

Anyway, it could be that both of these approaches have their places and that some synthesis can be made of them. To put the meaning of one's life completely on the other empties one's personal experience, but to lean wholly on the subjective leaves one contextless and lost. Classically: "If I am only for myself, then what am I?"

So I would encourage self-investigation and being true to oneself because ultimately we each walk down life alone and it is only through that path that one can find out who they are and what matters to them. This is the soul of man. But I also say that some faith in the meaningfulness of our surroundings and the human condition is not out of place. Although some are skeptical, I do not believe that our existence is an accident. And from that realization comes the conclusion that we hold some honored place in the grand scheme of things. Whether there's a mindful Schemer or a non-conscious Orderer is not so important as much as our place in the order of things. From this follows the valuation of human beings and human interests generally.

Mickey Mouse Rabbi

2008-02-03T01:57:00.001-05:00

I just found out recently about this guy on the left. I was by my friend's house and a small picture of him was taped on the wall. Apparently he, the Grand Rabbi Yeshaya Steiner of Kerestir, has the amazing ability to bless homes that display his likeness with a segulah to keep away mice! (Though ironically while I was there - I actually did see a mouse!)

How this is foundationally different from Catholics and their semi-avodah zara patron saints of whatever is a distinction lost to me.

Give Gaza to Egypt?

2008-01-30T03:23:00.001-05:00

Daniel Pipes yesterday came out with an article saying that the Hamasian border breaking fiasco should be used as an opportunity to change the whole Gaza equation and return the territory to the way it was ruled from 1948-67 - i.e. basically ruled by Egypt.

He writes:

Washington and other capitals should declare the experiment in Gazan self-rule a failure and press President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to help, perhaps providing Gaza with additional land or even annexing it as a province. This would revert to the situation of 1948-67, except this time Cairo would not keep Gaza at arm’s length but take responsibility for it.

Culturally, this connection is a natural: Gazans speak a colloquial Arabic identical to the Egyptians of Sinai, have more family ties to Egypt than to the West Bank, and are economically more tied to Egypt (recall the many smugglers’ tunnels). Further, Hamas derives from an Egyptian organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. As David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen notes, calling Gazans “Palestinians” is less accurate than politically correct.

Why not formalize the Egyptian connection? Among other benefits, this would (1) end the rocket fire against Israel, (2) expose the superficiality of Palestinian nationalism, an ideology under a century old, and perhaps (3) break the Arab-Israeli logjam.

See, the idea has a certain elegance - and in fact I had a friend mention the same idea days before Pipes' article - but even if it were at all feasable (since I'm fairly certain Egypt has no interest in Gaza as such, with a million-plus poor and radical people along with a well-armed group of religious extremists) I'm not sure it's the greatest idea. I think a main reason peace has been maintained with Egypt for the last 30 years is due directly to the Sinai being demilitarized and Israel and Egypt keeping each other at arm's length.

Suppose Egypt does take responsibility of Gaza - won't that necessarily involve Israel giving up airspace, freedom of travel and the ability for Egypt to bring up loads of troops to police the territory? Is it really in Israel's interest for Egypt to have that kind of presence right along the Israeli border?

But even besides that, do we really believe that Egypt will be more successful than Israel at controlling rocket attacks from Gaza? And when they fail - what is Israel to do? Ask really nicely? Actually threaten Egypt? The modern Egyptian military is a real force to be reckoned with. One of the largest in the world and now armed with up-to-date American and European equipment. I think we should keep our distance.

How the current crisis is going to resolve itself however is a real mystery. There are reports of Hamas putting up their flags in Egyptian towns - an act Egyptians see as an attack on their sovereignty. Is Egypt prepared to use actual force against Gazan militants? (Which I'm not sure they can even do, due to troop restrictions in the Sinai from the '79 peace agreement.) Or are we going to see a growing Hamastan in the northern Sinai? Does anyone believe that the Gazans are really all just going to pack up and go home quietly?

Neglecting God

2008-01-16T02:20:00.000-05:00

A few months ago from my studies I was told of a fascinating, though rather rare disorder of the mind - hemispatial neglect syndrome. This can occur when a person might have a huge stroke to one side of their brain and the consequence is a total lack of awareness to one side of reality. This may not sound so surprising, but you have to realize that I'm not talking about losing the ability to perceive space - like how damage to your visual cortex can cause blindness - but about the very human comprehension that there is more world on your left side.

Depending on the form of the disorder, if you tell these people to draw a copy of a clock face, you can see that it might go from 12 to 6 and totally lack the other numbers or they might try cramming all twelve into one side. They will only comb one side of their hair, will only shave half their face, will only read pages on one side of a book and will actually deny that one of their arms belongs to them! Even in their imaginations, if you tell them to recount the view of a famous street they will only report the buildings on one side. (Though if you tell them to walk up the street rather than down it, they will report only the buildings on the other side.)

This kind of disorder makes us uncomfortably aware of our own fragility, of course, but also tells us about the functions of our own awareness. It's a little unnerving to think about one's awareness of external space being tied so directly to the physical function of one's brain. It seems impossible that I could forget that half the world exists, that my left arm is my own, even if I suffered terrible trauma. I mean, I could easily see the other half of the world if I turned my head, so what would keep my from realizing it's there? I don't have eyes in the back of my head, but I am aware the universe extends behind me. These patients often don't even realize there is anything wrong with them! Even in cases where there is no sensory loss at all, this ability for awareness can be terribly affected.

Anyway, this is all fascinating, sure - but the reason I bring it up is for how it's treated. What is done for the patient is to constantly bring their attention to the affected side. For reading, if you put a red line on the margin the patient will know that he has to keep looking to the side until he sees that line in order to read the whole page. Playing catch and throwing the ball to their left side. Things of this nature to constantly encourage the patient to keep engaging the left side of the universe, directing his consciousness beyond what he perceives. Eventually, though how remains a mystery, the healthy brain tissue may take on some of the skills of the damaged brain and awareness can be extended on the side.

But the point is that these little exercises may seem absolutely pointless and strange to the patient. He doesn't necessarily think he's missing anything on his left - there's nothing there - so why should he cooperate with these kooky therapists? Even if they accept that they're missing half of reality, patients are often simply uninterested in it.

This is analogous, I think, to the function that apparently weird and pointless religious rituals can have for people. Judaism is full of chukim with rules and rituals that appear absurd to the secular and a source of amusement for the cynical. But they are not pointless. Their purpose, as opposed to the sensible moral laws or the rules that encourage benefits to the family, society or the environment, is but to be a service for God. What this means is that they are tools for stretching our consciousness beyond what we are normally aware of as far as physical reality goes, to see transcendence and ultimate value where we might otherwise see nothing. They are vehicles by which our awareness can transcend beyond merely what we see with our eyes.

Indeed, if chukim actually served a utilitarian purpose - like that kashrut was healthy - I believe it would actually completely remove it's power as a religious act. The whole mechanism by which our thoughts are raised by these acts is through being inscrutable. A utilitarian act drives no more thought beyond understanding its utility. That we understand the acts to be as if commanded by God drives our thoughts towards God.

We are born unconscious to the great noumenon beyond our senses, but through these exercises perhaps we can gain some sense of it - or at least drive our consciousness towards it. Others may be satisfied without it and still others may not believe it exists at all, but maybe they along with those patients with neglect syndrome just have no idea what they're missing.

Best Age Difference for Husband and Wife?

2007-12-12T19:23:00.000-05:00

By marrying a woman 15 years younger, preindustrial Sami men maximized their surviving offspring
By David Biello

Men marry younger women and women prefer to marry older men, in general. But is it culture, genetics or the environment that drives such a choice—and is there an optimal age difference? New research shows that, at least for the Sami people of preindustrial Finland, men should marry a woman almost 15 years their junior to maximize their chances of having the most offspring that survive.

"We studied how parental age difference at marriage affected [families'] reproductive success among Sami people who married only once in their lifetime[s]," says ecologist Samuli Helle of the University of Turku in Finland. "We found that marrying women 14.6 years younger maximized men's lifetime reproductive success—in other words, the number of offspring surviving to age 18."

Ah, so them Sephardis may have a method to their madness... It's not unusual for Sephardic girls to get married before they're done with highschool - to guys in their 30s.

Oh, what's in a name?

2007-12-11T23:24:00.000-05:00

I'm being troubled lately by the huge imposition which the label of "Orthodox" implies. It's true that I've typically used it on my blog to refer to the standard (little c) conservative system of belief, but that actually may be unfair to the rather sizeable portion of people who may identify as Orthodox but do not hold to that system.

And then practically the issue is what ought I call myself. I don't like labels since they only serve to restrict your thinking, but I know I don't fit into any of the categories currently out there in the Jewish world. And I've never really had to worry about this for myself since I don't tend to publicize my views - but as time goes on, more and more curious people play the role of the clever detective and figure me out. So anyway, sure, I take some inspiration from R' Kaplan, but I'm no Reconstructionist. I take some from R' Heschel, but I doubt I would be comfortable in his shul. I take some from R' Soloveitchik and R' Feinstein, but surely with some reservations. I even take plenty from the likes of the Ramchal and the Rambam - but obviously not everything. So what am I?

Sometimes I (half) jest and call myself Post-Denominational. But that's next to meaningless. I also jest sometimes and call myself "Modern orthodox" (big M, small o). But truly speaking, I do suspect that the most accurate label for me might just be where I started from all that time ago, in those years before blogs. A grand Hegelian cycle. And that is Modern Orthodox. Sure, not in the same half-understood sense that I thought back then, but in the truer sense of what Modern Orthodoxy theoretically holds itself to be - a no-holds barred engagement with modernity while maintaining our regular Halacha and traditions. (Though I am sympathetic to Yehudi Hilchati's notions on this topic.)

See, I believe, like so many others in the program of Judaism and the system of Halacha. True, I do take issue with a number of figures who hold positions of authority and some Halachic conclusions they've reached, but at the same time the system has proven the test of time and I'm in no position to buck it.

Now, is it a great label? No. And is there great contestation of what it means? Sure. But like all labels imposed on humankind, the true humans can only approximate into which groups they believe they sit.

Medical Insurance Madness

2007-12-08T21:24:00.000-05:00

It's very interesting how one of the primary reasons why those who oppose a national health care plan is because of the believed increased costs and taxation that will go with it. But most people don't seem to realize that per capita the US government already spends more on health care than most other developed countries, including England, France and Canada. It's beaten only by Iceland, Norway, Monaco and Luxemborg (2004 figures). That money comes from your tax dollars and it covers only covers 45% of total health care costs. That's right. You are already getting taxed more than those other nations and are getting only 45% of their return.

On top of that, total US expenditure for the rest of that 55% comes from private insurance, out of pocket, etc. So the total per capita costs in America are 50% - 100% more than what they pay total in other developed nations. You are getting doubly reamed for a medical service that nationally has poorer showings in many respects than those other countries.

In essence, you are already paying the same (or more) taxes for socialized medicine as other nations but are not getting the benefits from it.

Private insurance systems are for profit and do not work for your interests. Additionally, people who cannot afford simple, cheap care for medical problems will do without and will then wait until they need to go to the ER when their costs can be absurdly high. Who do you think foots the bill there? Either US governments who pay for it through taxes or rising medical costs which get passed to you anyway.

As long as we're living in a society which isn't really willing to refuse people medical care, then you are de facto living in a socialized state. You just pay for it in an incredibly inefficient way which raises medical costs, worsens public health and has the private insurance people laughing all the way to the bank as they skim significant administrative costs off the top.

Another big issue that people take are with are with wait times. They hear horror stories of waiting periods in the months for simple medical tests. Now while these are sometimes true, they are most often exaggerations and are typically for optional medical procedures. But in any case, the correct way to look at the issue is essentially through a moral view. Obviously there are limited medical resources so the question is how they get parsed out. In a system like ours, wait times are often kept to a minimum because poor people just aren't getting the care they need. They don't even get on line. It's only because poor people are suddenly are in the waiting rooms that richer people find they have to wait a little longer.

So essentially, the choice is between giving poor people health care or keeping it from them. Wait times are the inevitable effect of having more people able to acquire medical care.

Now, I'm not arguing that having a single-payer system is without its drawbacks. It does invite over-use of the system because if it's free then people will be more eager to use it - even when they really don't need to. It also invites higher expenses in the system in some respects because when given an option between a cheap proven drug and the new expensive one, if people aren't paying for the difference then they're far more likely to choose the more expensive one.

But these are not incredibly difficult deal breaking issues. They can be dealt with in other ways, but the overall view of the US medical system in view of economics and morality seems to fall heavily on the side of a single-payer system. The for-profit insurance companies work at cross-purposes to actual medical care since they only care about profits while, simply, good medical care can be expensive. And a lot of people in need are either given the run around to save costs, are dropped from service or simply cannot get coverage in the first place. Competition for medical insurance drives up costs for administration, advertisement and political "gifts" that have nothing to do with medicine. It's simply a bad system.

Religious Pluralism in the 12th Century

2007-11-16T02:42:00.000-05:00

Know then ... nothing prevents God from sending into His world whomsoever He wishes, since the world of holiness sends forth emanations unceasingly ... Even before the revelation of the Law He sent prophets to the nations ... and again after its revelation nothing preventing Him from sending to them whom He wishes so that the world might not remain without religion ... Mohammed was a prophet to them but not to those who preceded them in the knowledge of God ... He permitted to every people something which He forbade to others, and He forbade to them something which He permitted to others, for He knoweth what is best for His creatures and what is adapted to them ... He therefore sends prophets in every age and period that they might urge the creatures to serve Him and do the good, and that they might be a road-guide to righteousness ... Not one people remained without a law, for all of them are from one Lord and unto Him they all return...

-From Bustan al-Ukul (The Garden of Wisdom) by Nathanael ibn al-Fayyumi, leader of the Yemenite Jews of the 12th century and, interestingly, the father of the addressee of the Rambam's famous Iggeret Teiman. [See here, pages 103-109]

This is very notable as a stunning statement of religious pluralism. In this view, God sends out prophets to different peoples with different levels of religious instruction as appropriate for their level of progress or inherent natures. And this is happening all the time - a continuous revelation.

A little philosophical tweaking here and there and we see a common theme of theology across many different peoples where the superficial religious traditions of a people are key to their identity and uniquely appropriate for them, but are without fundamental differences in the underlying truth common to all religious traditions.

Fast Healthy

2007-11-06T21:31:00.000-05:00

WebMD says: Fasting on a regular basis may protect against heart disease, researchers report.

In a study of more than 4,500 men and women, people who fasted were 39% less likely to be diagnosed with coronary artery disease than those who didn't fast. Coronary artery disease was defined as having at least 70% narrowing or blockage in at least one coronary artery.

Though more than 90% of the people studied were Mormons, the findings held true even in those who had a different religious preference, says Benjamin D. Horne, PhD, director of cardiovascular and genetic epidemiology at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City.
The researchers did not put any time frame on fasting, but Horne notes that "among [Mormons], religious teachings involve fasting on the first Sunday of every month for 24 hours."

Personally, I've always kinda liked the six (or seven) fasts that Judaism has around the year. Some are particularly well timed (I'm thinking particularly of Tzom Gedalia and Ta'anit Esther) to seemingly balance out nearby holidays of heavy eating.

Reflections in Sanskrit

2007-10-28T04:17:00.000-04:00

Ishvara (Sanskrit Īśvara ईश्वर "lord, master", from an adjective īśvara "capable") is a philosophical concept in Hinduism, meaning controller or the Supreme controller (i.e. 'God') in a monotheistic sense or as an Ishta-Devata of monistic thought. Ishvara is also used to denote a "lord" in a temporal sense, as any master or king (a dual usage also found in English).

...

Advaitism [a school of Hindu philosophy] holds that when human beings think of Brahman, the Supreme Cosmic Spirit is projected upon the limited, finite human mind and appears as Ishvara. Therefore, the mind projects human attributes, such as personality, motherhood, and fatherhood on the Supreme Being. An interesting metaphor is that when the "reflection" of the Cosmic Spirit falls upon the mirror of Maya (Māyā; the principle of illusion, which binds the mind), it appears as the Supreme Lord. God (as in Brahman) is not thought to have such attributes in the true sense. However it may be helpful to project such attributes onto God — the myriad names and forms of God one finds in Hinduism are all human-constructed ways for approaching the divine.

Interesting.

Compare with this:

[W]e may promote certain conceptions about God that are valid in the sense of the lessons they teach without actually being technically true. Where fundamentalists fail is by essentially fetishizing the lessons by branding them as literal truth. The truth of the matter is that we know very little about the nature of the ultimate reality and so even while you might consider such an admission an evasion, it remains a key fact to understand.

On a personal note, another key realization is to understand that a skeptic's approach to religion need not always be a matter of confrontation.

What I conceive about God is hard to put in words. I have conflicting notions and ideas that are not yet fully developed - assuming they may one day be. But, fundamentally, I consider God to be the ground of being of existence - the source for existence itself. God is the source of order which makes rational existence as we know it possible.

But does God 'think'? Does God have 'knowledge'? Is God 'good'? These things sound like anthropomorphizations to me. Nevertheless, they may be useful approaches to the transcendent, even though they are flawed. We are limited beings, but just because we haven't figured out what's going on 'up there' doesn't mean that we can ignore it.

It's nice to see one's own ideas reflected in the wisdom of others'.

Take a Hint from the East

2007-10-25T00:13:00.000-04:00

Hinduism is a very rich and complex religion. Each sect is like a denomination with rich religious practices. Professional priestly brahmins have denominations like Shaivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism, and Smartha. Each of these four denominations share rituals, beliefs, traditions and personal Gods with one another, but each denomination has a different philosophy on how to achieve life's ultimate goal (moksa, liberation) and different views of the Gods. Each follows different methods of self-realization and worships different aspects of the One Supreme God. However, each respects and accepts all others, and conflict of any kind is rare. Among Hindu followers as a whole, there is a strong belief that there are many paths leading to the One God or the Source, whatever one chooses to call that ultimate Truth.
...
The presence of different denominations and schools within Hinduism should not be viewed as a schism. On the contrary, there is no animosity between the schools. Instead there is a healthy cross-pollination of ideas and logical debate that serves to refine each school's philosophy. It is not uncommon, or disallowed, for an individual to follow one school but take the point of view of another school for a certain issue.

Although Hinduism has obvious differences from Judaism it still is, in some important ways, very much like Judaism. Like Judaism, it is a People first and a Religion second. It is all pervasive with ethics, rituals, values and beliefs underlying and directing all aspects of life. It has many different religious beliefs (albeit with more diversity than Judaism) but it is the constancy of orthopraxy which maintains its identity. They are both heritage-minded, non-exclusionary (i.e. Jews and Hindus both believe that non-adherents can still 'get into Heaven') and generally non-proselytizing.

It is therefore of no surprise - and frankly long overdue - that each community should finally recognize the other as natural allies in terms of how each religion intersects with communal life. (Not to mention politically as well, since both Israel and India are at the front lines of the confrontation with Islamic extremism.) In February there was a Hindu-Jewish summit in New Delhi where they met to officially recognize just that.

Anyway, I think we might have more to gain from our Hindu cousins in respect with how they manage a co-existence of very different ideas while not being much for heresy hunting. A similar approach could be applied for a reconstruction of modern pluralistic Judaism. Excerpts from here:

In the case of most religions, beliefs and practices come first, and those who subscribe to them are acknowledged as followers. In the case of the Hindu tradition, however, the acknowledgment of Hindus came first, and their beliefs and practices constitute the contents of the religion.
...
The Hindu tradition encourages Hindus to seek spiritual and moral truth wherever it might be found, while acknowledging that no creed can contain such truth in its fullness and that each individual must realize this truth through his or her own systematic effort. Our experience, our reason, and our dialogue with others—especially with enlightened individuals—provide various means of testing our understanding of spiritual and moral truth. And Hindu scripture, based on the insights of Hindu sages and seers, serves primarily as a guidebook. But ultimately truth comes to us through direct consciousness of the divine or the ultimate reality. In other religions this ultimate reality is known as God. Hindus refer to it by many names, but the most common name is Brahman.
...
A Hindu is thus identified by a dual exclusion. A Hindu is someone who does not subscribe to a religion of non-Indian origin, and who does not claim to belong exclusively to another religion of Indian origin—Buddhism, Jainism, or Sikhism. This effort at definition produces a rather artificial distinction between Hinduism and other dharmic traditions, which stems from an attempt to limit a system that sees itself as universal to an identity that is strictly religious.
...
Various schools have contributed to Hindu thought, each school with a different emphasis. The school known as Vedanta has been the standard form of intellectual Hinduism. According to Vedanta, the highest aim of existence is the realization of the identity or union of the individual’s innermost self (atman) with the ultimate reality. Although Vedanta states that this ultimate reality is beyond name, the word Brahman is used to refer to it.

Whether this ultimate reality is itself ultimately without distinguishing attributes (nirguna) or with personal attributes (saguna) has been a subject of extensive debate among Hindu scholars. To be ultimate Brahman must transcend (exist above and beyond) all limiting attributes, such as name, gender, form, and features. But how can the human mind, with its limitations, conceive of this transcendent reality? Human comprehension requires a more personal reality, with attributes.

Saguna Brahman is also called Ishvara, a name best translated as "Lord." A quotation attributed to 8th-century Hindu scholar Shankara illustrates the subtlety of these ideas: "Ishvara, forgive these three sins of mine: that although you are everywhere I have gone on a pilgrimage, although you are beyond the mind I have tried to think of you; and although you are ineffable [indescribable] I offer this hymn in praise of you."
...
How do we proceed if we wish to rise toward Brahman? Hindu thought takes the personality of the seeker as the starting point. It divides human personalities into types dominated by physicality, activity, emotionality, or intellectuality. The composition of our personality intuitively predisposes us to a type of yoga—that is, a path we might follow to achieve union with Brahman. Although many people associate the word yoga with a physical discipline, in its original Hindu meaning yoga refers to any technique that unites the seeker with the ultimate reality.

While physical fitness buffs may seek such a union by practicing hatha yoga, people with different personality traits have other choices. For the action-oriented person there is karma yoga, the yoga of action, which calls for a life of selfless deeds and actions appropriate to the person’s station in life. For the person of feeling, bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion, calls for unconditional love for a personal divinity. For the person of thought, jñana yoga, the yoga of knowledge, calls for spiritual and physical discipline intended to bring direct insight into ultimate reality. The yogas do not represent tightly sealed compartments, merely convenient classifications. A well-balanced personality might well employ all four. These yogas are sometimes called margas (paths), suggesting that the same destination can be approached by more than one route, and indeed by more than one mode of travel.
...
Hindus consider all of creation worthy of worship, and thus religious activity in Hinduism takes many forms. Rituals may be performed by the individual, the family, the village, the community or region; at home or in a temple; and frequently or infrequently. The prevalence and persistence of Hindu ritual may well provide the stabilizing factor in a tradition that is so flexible in doctrine. Ritual might even be considered the glue that holds Hindus and Hinduism together. Many rites and observances that Hindus practice daily have come down from ancient times. Others grew up around the lives and teachings of Hindu saints and sages. While details of rituals may differ from region to region and jati to jati, their meaning and central practices have remained consistent over vast distances of time and space.

Virtually all rituals in Hinduism possess multiple meanings, including symbolic interpretations. Even the way Hindus regularly greet each other may be regarded as symbolically bowing to the divine. The Hindu greeting involves pressing the palms of the hands together, which symbolizes the meeting of two people; placing the hands over the heart where Brahman dwells, indicating that one meets the self in the other; bowing the head in recognition of this meeting; and saying namaste, a Sanskrit word that means "I bow to you" and signifies "I bow to the divine in you."

So are there differences? Sure. But perhaps it is no coincidence that in Hebrew, Hudi and Yehudi are only separated by one letter.

On Obligation

2007-10-22T17:02:00.000-04:00

This is a bit of a sticky issue. How can the movements of Judaism which do not recognize the divine authority of the mitzvot or the standing of rabbis to declare judgment in Halacha still maintain a sense of obligation to Jewish heritage and traditional Jewish practices? What is the place of Halacha in a philosophy that does not recognize divine law? Simply, on what basis can liberal Judaism make requirements on their constituents?

A major problem of Reform and Conservative Judaism is the apparent "anything goes" approach to Jewish practice and belief which leads to a free for all and disintegration of Jewish identity and community. This approach is based on the ill-conceived idea that people will leave Judaism entirely if they feel the least bit chaffed by obligations that do not suit them, yet it is those people who are most likely to be committed to Judaism which then feel little for it because it requires nothing of them. Judaism becomes meaningless. Liberal movements tend to play towards the lowest common denominator in order to create the biggest tent, but ultimately this backfires as the content of Judaism is lost in empty aphorisms and continually dated political efforts. The process promotes a weakness in Judaism to which even committed Jews have trouble finding tangible connection.

So I have an approach which is akin to some Reconstructionist approaches where it is Jewish heritage itself that makes claims on each Jew. A committed - religious - Jew is one who delves into the richness of our history, religious evolution and traditional practices in order to make a home for themselves in our heritage - and, most importantly, is keen on passing on that sense of patrimony to the next generation. The idea is that one is not just a passive receiver of a heritage, but one has an obligation to maintain it, make it one's own and pass it on. The mandate is to build a Jewish philosophy, a Jewish family and a Jewish community. This necessarily applies to both individuals and the larger collective as the goals cannot be met by a kahal without individual interest, nor can an individual best express his Jewishness without communal life.

B. Spinoza elsewhere lambasted this approach as being little more realistic than divine obligation. That a heritage cannot create an obligation. I disagree (obviously). A Jew is defined by his heritage - since it is only our heritage which makes us different from any goy on the street and therefore it is by our heritage that we can judge whether a person is a good or a bad Jew. First and foremost is how importantly a Jew considers his heritage to be - indeed, how important a Jew believes it is to be a Jew. Any individual Jew may be a great person, but if he doesn't take his heritage seriously and doesn't care to pass it onto his children, then he (I'm sorry to say) simply isn't a great Jew.

Now I believe that once a person really takes his identity seriously, a next step is to follow a way of life that best exemplifies the values so accepted. Following some approximation of traditional Jewish practice - orthopraxy - seems like an ideal fit to me. What precisely the borders of Halacha ought to be in such a state is essentially a matter of politics, though some general principles need to be followed in order for communities to coherently exist. Personally I tend towards relatively more conservative realizations of Jewish practice, but these are details.

Rabbi Schachter (effectively) Forbids Jewish Surgeons

2007-10-18T16:47:00.000-04:00

Rabbi Hershel Schachter (Rosh HaYeshiva of RIETS) says:

"There is a terrible misconception that the laws of Shabbos do not apply to doctors. This is absolutely incorrect. No profession exempts anyone from any mitzvos. Medical students are certainly not exempt from Shabbos observance. And even after having completed his school years, the future doctor must take special care to make sure he has a Sabbath-observant residency. If this can not be arranged, the student must simply look for a different profession."

That's a pretty strong statement there. And since there are some fields of medicine that don't really offer such residencies, is R' Schachter saying that an Orthodox Jew cannot realistically become, say, a surgeon or a cardiologist? (Though if anyone does know of a shomer-shabbos surgical residency, I'd be interested to hear about it.)

Clearly, though, there are plenty of observant doctors today who did go through residencies that were not particularly Shabbos friendly - so what gives? Are all these people in error?

Compare the above with the responsum of Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Halpern of Shaare Zedek:

Question: I am a medical student in the United States and am in the process of choosing a residency. Here in the States, there are some specialties in which one can obtain a residency that does not require working on Shabbos (eg, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry and radiology), whereas there are other specialties where working on Shabbos is a requirement (eg, general surgery, OB/Gyn, urology, cardiology). Is it permissible to pursue training in one of these latter fields in the United States?

Answer: It is preferable to train in a Shomer-Shabbat program. If one feels very strongly that he can best serve as a physician in a field which has no such program, it is permissible to train in a regular program. However, one should be very knowledgeable concerning the laws of Shabbat, which is quite a complicated matter.

Looks like Rabbi Dr. Halpern takes a much more reasonable approach. It seems obvious to me, however, that Halachic conflicts are almost inevitable when working in any field on Shabbos but that shouldn't be reason enough to make people turn their back on what otherwise could be their calling, especially when the unimpeachable goal is to save human life and/or to better the quality of life for those who are suffering. As the famous saying goes, I'm not maikil on hilchot Shabbos, I'm machmir on hilchot pikuach nefesh!

I never liked the idea that Halacha is a barrier to the success of man. What it is (or should be), is taking a different approach through life that allows you to get to the same destination - but as a Jew.

A Charging Metaphor for Metaphysics

2007-09-26T17:33:00.000-04:00

To Lubab No More on fundamentalism and the skepticism of simple absolute truths:

The way God is often described is designedly so simple that a child can understand it. And, like most fields of knowledge, simplification is good for handing over important ideas but not for an in depth study. Oversimplification leads to blurring of the complexities which lead to apparent contradiction.

As a case in point - does water conduct electricity? You probably learned in kindergarten that yes, it does very much! and you need to be very careful when around water and a live current.

But actually that's misleading. I mean it's practically true, but if you then study some chemistry you'd question how H2O passes current - it shouldn't by itself since it's an uncharged molecule. Contradiction! What is actually passing current are the _impurities_ in the water. The salts, the minerals, etc. The charge bounces off of them.

So then you may be happy with that level of understanding, but then you learn that even pure water conducts electricity a little bit. How can that be? That contradicts the last explanation! What is actually happening in water is that the molecules don't just sit around quietly but they are somewhat unstable. Some portion of them are constantly breaking apart into H+ and OH- and then reassembling themselves. So it is those transient ions on which charge flows.

See the kindergarten-level understanding of water and electricity isn't wrong per se, it's just oversimplified. The lesson is very important to pass along without all of that other complication even though you miss a great deal of further understanding in the process.

Now that was just about water. Maybe (kal v'chomer) the same kind of process applies to the God you were taught about in kindergarten too, hmm?

Some Perspective

2007-09-17T23:45:00.000-04:00

A favourite saying of the Rabbis of Jabneh was: I am God's creature and my fellow is God's creature. My work is in the town and his work is in the country. I rise early for my work and he rises early for his work. Just as he does not presume to do my work, so I do not presume to do his work. Will you say, I do much and he does little? We have learnt: One may do much or one may do little; it is all one, provided he directs his heart to heaven.

Brachot 17a

Seems to me like those Yavneh rabbis had a better appreciation for non-kollelites than do some segments of contemporary Judaism.

On Ethics:

2007-09-16T04:42:00.000-04:00

I wrote this to GH for his recent post as a musing on the nature of ethics:

The issue with ethics is always the profit motive. If I can profit by being unethical, why shouldn't I?

The answer must be that in some way the 'profit' actually comes at a steeper cost.

The other issue is where one's ethical standards come from in the first place. How do we know they are valid? Subjective ethics do not work because they can only justify how you act, but you cannot use them to criticize the acts of others.

Orthodoxy has answers to these questions, but skepticism makes those answers impotent.

My answers: I value my own ethical integrity and that integrity is worth more to me than any monetary gain or whatever. I also believe that ethics are essentially discovered by mankind as codes that lead to good or bad things for people in society and society in general. We can tell whether an ethic is valid by observing its fruit.

But such experiments, as it would be, are tough to explore in many cases and so we must practically rely on the sustained wisdom of the ages, the sentiments of gifted individuals, and ultimately our own judgement.

The final issue is why should we even care about being ethical at all? Most people care about morality intuitively - an integral part of being human is caring about other people, but I have little to say that could convince a nihilist.

A Midrash on Moshe and Metaphysics

2007-09-16T02:56:00.000-04:00

R' Abbahu said: All the forty days that Moses was on high, he kept on forgetting the Torah he learnt. He then said: 'Lord of the Universe, I have spent forty days, yet I know nothing.' What did God do? At the end of the forty days, He gave him the Torah as a gift, for it says, AND HE GAVE UNTO MOSES. Could then Moses have learnt the whole Torah? Of the Torah it says: The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea (Job 11:9); could then Moses have learnt it all in forty days? No; but it was only the principles thereof which God taught Moses.

-Exodus Rabbah 41:6

This is an interesting midrash. The most striking point is that it says that God only taught Moshe the principles of the Torah - which runs contrary to the typical Orthodox perspective that God revealed all of the Torah and all of the Oral Law to him. But secondly, there's the point that "Torah" is defined here not as the Pentateuch, but through the reference in Job which uses "The measure..." to describe the mysteries and (non)limits of God - "Torah" is then defined essentially as all metaphysical truth of God's ways.

Job 11:
7 "Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty?
8 They are higher than the heavens—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths of the grave—what can you know?
9 Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.

So what is the midrash saying that Moshe received at Sinai? He received the principles of metaphysical truth.

For those of a skeptical bent who yet still recognize wisdom in the scriptures, this may be a helpful perspective in one's approach to Judaism.

It's Rosh Hashanah...isn't it?

2007-09-09T02:52:00.000-04:00

Here's an interesting little tidbit I stumbled upon recently. Rosh Hashanah this year begins Wednesday night, but the molad - the timing of the new moon - is early Wednesday morning. See, on an otherwise unmolested calendric system the molad would determine the day of Rosh Hashanah as beginning Tuesday night (as then the molad would actually occur on the first day of Rosh Hashanah) but the traditional calendric system has several different reasons for why the date for Rosh Hashanah can be pushed off for a day or two.

They go into it simply here:

Once the date of the Molad Tishrei has been calculated, some additional considerations must be taken into account to determine the actual date of Rosh HaShanah. These considerations may cause the actual date of 1 Tishrei to be postponed from the date of the Molad Tishrei. There are four such postponements:

First, if the time of the Molad Tishrei is later than 18 hours from the beginning of the day, Rosh HaShanah is postponed to the next day. This probably accounts for the fact that the young moon could not have been observed until the next day.

Second, for common years only, if the Molad Tishrei falls on a Tuesday, and is later than 9 hours and 204 halakhim from the start of the day, Rosh HaShanah is postponed to the next day. This rule prevents a situation in which the postponements for the next year would require the year to be 356 days long.

Third, for years following leap years only, if the Molad Tishrei falls on a Monday, and is later than 15 hours and 589 halakhim from the start of the day, Rosh HaShanah is postponed to the next day. This rule prevents a situation that would require the previous year to be only 382 days long.

Finally, if Rosh HaShanah would fall on Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday, it is postponed to the next day. In combination with one of the above postponements, Rosh HaShanah could be postponed by as much as two days. This postponement prevents certain holidays from falling on the Sabbath.

The site also has a neat number crunching program that tells you when each of the above situations affect a given year's schedule and the rescheduled date for Rosh Hashanah.

Anyway, so the first three issues are essentially practical concerns to keep the entire system from going off kilter, but what really interests me is the last means of postponement. See, what it is referring to is the postponement rule of Lo ADU Rosh which is a mnemonic name, aleph, dalet, vuv to indicate that if the molad falls on the first, fourth or sixth day of the week then Rosh Hashanah is to be delayed. But why those days of the week? What's the significance?

So the Talmud says (Rosh Hashanah 20a) that the reason for the Wednesday and Friday rule is so that Yom Kippur doesn't fall out on either side of Shabbos and it's pushed off from Sunday because otherwise Hoshanah Rabbah can fall out on Shabbos (Sukkah 43a). So the Gemaras continue, respectively, explaining that having Shabbos and Yom Kippur after one another is bad either because then the dead may have to wait two days before burial and/or that food will go bad and that if Hoshanah Rabbah falls on Shabbos then people will be unable to perform the classic aravot beating.

Now, I find this really remarkable for a couple of reasons. The first reason is due to the fact that they seemed to think it was alright to mess around with the whole calender - and the dates of all the holidays - for what is essentially ritual convenience! In the pre-calculated system the molad would happen when the molad would happen and you couldn't just change around the dates at will. Yom Kippur no doubt _did_ fall out on Friday and Sunday on a regular basis. And even more than that, to ensure that people far from Jerusalem were observing the correct date for the holiday they kept two days yom tov - and yet here we are messing around with the holy times for convenience! It is really amazing.

Secondly, if the reason Yom Kippur was so moved was so that two days of Shabbos didn't follow one another - what would those Amoraim make of today's three days yom tov/Shabbos in a row?! But besides that, even within the calculated system, Pesach comes up against Shabbos pretty regularly - as it does this year - and Shavuous too regularly does the same. So I'm not even sure I understand their reasoning. Do the dead not have to wait the same two days? In any case, I'd much rather have it set up so that Pesach can never begin on a Saturday night rather than Yom Kippur getting that special concern.

Lastly, I'd like to say a few words about the molad itself. The molad was initially figured out by eye witnesses and was taken very seriously as the Mishnah and Gemara report in great detail. Indeed, witnesses could break the Shabbos to travel to the court to make sure that the molad was set on it's proper time. But as that system became impractical the molad was calculated into a calendric system that could operate independently of witness' sitings. So the molad was calculated to be 29 days 12 hours and 44+1/18 minutes after the previous molad (possibly taken from Ptolemy), which was actually very accurate. But the problem is that due to tidal effects between the Earth and Moon, the mean time for the Moon's orbit is now _less than_ what it was in Hillel II's day. The difference is about 0.6 seconds each month and the accumulated molad has by now gained almost 100 minutes on the actual molad that witnesses would report.

The consequence of this is that today the calculated molads are no longer somewhere between Israel and Babylon as it was during the Talmudic period. Now they are calculating a molad that happens somewhere over Afghanistan! And with a difference of over 100 minutes (out of 1440 minutes in day) that means that the molad is calculated to be on the _wrong day_ about 7% of the time! Link

Now that's some weird stuff, isn't it?

I guess I'll just leave this off with wishing all my readers a shana tovah umetukah and a pleasant Rosh Hashanah....assuming it actually is Rosh Hashanah, of course.

Members of a Different Tribe

2007-08-27T15:00:00.000-04:00

Over the past some time I've come to realize a growing appreciation for the stories of the Native Americans, their respective cultures and their resilience in the historical face of institutional prejudice and persecution. The Indian identities are focused around the tribe. They each have their sacred, ancestral lands, their respective religious beliefs and their own languages. And their greatest concerns in modern times are how to maintain the traditions of their ancestors in order to perpetuate their tribal identities. If we then understand that the Jew is essentially a tribal creature then it becomes clear that we fit right along that kind of social structure. Not perfectly though, since the vagaries of history have warped our tribal order, but it is still easily recognizable.

In many ways their stories remind me of our stories, as Jews have been likewise persecuted down the ages - and often for similar reasons. Sadly, in the typical American history education, the many injustices against the Indians are glossed over. But they had been repeatedly lied to through treaty violations, exiled far from their homes, been at the mercy of government sponsored massacres and were the objects of forced institutional assimilation. So think outside the box for a moment, doesn't the Trail of Tears and the Long Walk remind you of certain episodes in Jewish history? Were the originally tiny reservations so different from the European ghettos? Are the massacres really no different from a pogrom?

It's a little strange to think about, but from the Cherokee's perspective Andrew Jackson could be their Nebuchadnezzar.

Keep in mind too that I do not intend on equating these events. This is not a contest for who suffered the most, but an attempt to show some mirrors of history which promote a greater understanding and appreciation for the histories of others as well as our own.

A few friends (all modern to right-wing Orthodox) and I visited Phoenix a couple of weeks ago and we went to the apparently world renown Heard Museum which displays Native American culture, art and history. (They didn’t appreciate it as much as I did, but there isn’t much to do in Phoenix anyway.) One of the exhibits presented the story of the Indian Schools which had been first set up in the late nineteenth century as a means to forcibly assimilate the Indians into normative American life.

These children were pulled from their homes and were forbidden to practice their traditional culture, wear their traditional clothing and had to cut their hair. They were forced to give up their Indian names and were given English ones. They could not speak their native languages, even privately, for fear of punishment. They were forced to attend Church services and were expected to convert to Christianity as their native religious practices were prohibited.

Seeing that, I said to my friends, that’s not much different from Antiochus, now is it? One of them mocked the grievance that they had to cut their hair. So I responded that while I didn’t know the specific meaningfulness of their hair (though I found out later that it does hold cultural or spiritual importance to many tribes) try to put it in perspective - what if you were mocking the idea of forcibly cutting off payes?

Some conversation ensued and soon one of them spontaneously remarked that a huge flaw in the typical yeshivah education is the lack of historical perspective that is given to Jewish history. He said that no attempt is made to try and understand the motives or goals of the people involved. Antiochus was simply evil and all of history is black and white. Indeed. I replied saying that he should read through Tanach and see how Shmuel and Melachim are chock full of unapologetic political intrigue.

Jewish history is real history in the normal world of men and you don’t need mystical or supernatural inducement to explain the diachronic plight of the Jewish people as an unpopular minority. If one understands our past as a singularity, bound by different, special rules and incomparable to anything else, then one cannot engage with it to learn from the lessons of the past. To learn from our history requires us to understand that it is history and has reflections in the histories of other peoples.

Orthodoxy is Unconsciousness

2007-08-03T16:23:00.000-04:00

As has been pointed out, I have not posted in some time and so I thought I'd just throw a potboiler post out there and maybe it'd pull me into the blogging mood again.

Fun quote I found:

"Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

Anyone know it? It's from a pretty well known book.

Naturally though, I don't mean to malign all of orthodoxy or Orthodox Judaism in particular, but it is perfectly true that people who don't think tend to easily fall into prescribed ways of thinking. They let others do the thinking for them. This is just as true for religion and politics and for whatever else that people think about. Now, obviously, not everyone can be a leader, but it frankly saddens me and worries me for humanity's future that so many are so willing to mentally unhook themselves and live their lives by their respective received wisdom without hardly an independent critical thought.

So, yeah, think about that.

The Aztec's National Revelation II

2007-07-08T20:47:00.000-04:00

So it turns out that the records are pretty spotty since the Aztecs kept no written text of their myths and they simultaneously held several oral forms of the same stories (kinda similar to how early Israelites likely were). But there is one solid written source by the grandson of Montezuma II (made famous as the Aztec ruler during the Spanish conquest) from 1609.

While the text seems to make no big deal of Huitzilopochtli talking to his people he does do so, though more often he speaks through intermediaries the 'idol bearers.'

"Here it is told, it is recounted
How the ancients who were called, who were named,
Teochichimeca, Azteca, Mexitin, Chicomoztoca, came, arrived,
When they came to seek,
When they came to gain possession of their land here,
In the great city of Mexico Tenochtitlan. . . .
In the middle of the water where the cactus stands,
Where the eagle raises itself up,
Where the eagle screeches,
Where the eagle spreads his wings,
Where the eagle feeds,
Where the serpent is torn apart,
Where the fish fly,
Where the blue waters and the yellow waters join,
Where the water blazes up,
Where feathers came to be known,
Among the rushes, among the reeds where the battle is joined,
Where the peoples from the four directions are awaited,
There they arrived, there they settled…
They called themselves Teochichimeca, Azteca, Mexitin.
They brought along the image of their god,
The idol that they worshipped.
The Aztecs heard him speak and they answered him;
They did not see how it was he spoke to them…"

As you can note, it specifically says that the Aztecs heard him speak, though they did not see how - kinda like the the revelation in the Torah, hmm?

The last chapter goes like this:

"The Culhuacan pursued them, they pursued the Mexicans,
They drove them into the water….
The Culhuacans thought that they had perished in the water,
But they crossed the water on their shields,
They crossed on their arrows and shields.
They bound together the arrows, called Tlacochtli,
And those called Tlatzontectli,
And, sitting upon them, they crossed the water….
And sitting upon the shields they crossed the water
When the Culhuacans pursued them.
And they came into the rushes, into the reeds at
Mexicatzinco….
There they dried their battle gear which had become wet,
Their insignias, their shields—all their gear.
And their women and children began to weep.
They said, "Where shall we go? Let us remain here in the reeds…."
IX.
And then the old Mexicans, Quauhtlequtzqui, or Quauhcoatl,
And also the one called Axolohua went off,
They went into the rushes, into the reeds
At the place that is now called Toltzalan, Acatzalan;
The two of them went to look for the place they were to settle.
And when they came upon it,
They saw the many wondrous things there in the reeds.
This was the reason Huitzilopochtli had given his orders to the idol-
bearers, his fathers,
Quauhtlequetzqui, or Quauhcoatl, and Axolohua, the priest.
For he had sent them off,
He had told them all that there was in the rushes, in the reeds,
And that there he, Huitzilopochtli, was to stand,
That there he was to keep guard.
He told them with his own lips,
Thus he sent off the Mexicans.
And then they saw the white bald cypresses, the white willows,
And the white reeds and the white rushes;
And also the white frogs, the white fish, and the white snakes
That lived there in the water.
And they saw the springs that joined;
The first spring faced east and was called Tleatl and Atlatlayan,
The second spring faced north and was called Matlalatl and also
Tozpalatl.
And when they saw this the old men wept.
They said, "Perhaps it is to be here.
We have seen what the priest, Huitzilopochtli, described to us
When he sent us off.
He said, `In the rushes, in the reeds, you shall see many things.'
And now we have seen them, we have beheld them!
It has come true, his words when he sent us off have come true!"
Then they said,
"O Mexicans, let us go, for we have beheld them.
Let us await the word of the priest;
He knows how it shall be done."
Then they came, they sojourned in Temazcaltitlan.
And during the night he saw him,
Huitzilopochtli appeared to the idol-bearer, called
Quauhtlequetzqui, or Quauhcoatl.
He said to him, "O Quauhcoatl, you have seen all there is in among
the reeds,
In among the rushes,
You have beheld it.
But hear this:
There is something you still have not seen.
Go, go and look at the cactus,
And on it, standing on it, you shall see an eagle.
It is eating, it is warming itself in the sun,
And your heart will rejoice,
For it is the heart of Copil that you cast away
Where you halted in Tlalcocomoco.
There it fell, where you looked, at the edge of the spring,
Among the rushes, among the reeds.
And from Copil's heart sprouted what is now called Tenochtli.
There we shall be, we shall keep guard,
We shall await, we shall meet the diverse peoples in battle.
With our bellies, with our heads,
With our arrows, with our shields,
We shall confront all who surround us
And we shall vanquish them all,
We shall make them captives,
And thus our city shall be established.
Mexico Tenochtitlan:
Where the Eagle Screeches
Where he spreads his wings,
Where the Eagle feeds,
Where the fish fly,
And where the Serpent is torn apart.
Mexico Tenochtitlan!
And many things shall come to pass."
Then Quauhcoatl said to him, "Very well, Oh priest. Your heart has
granted it.
Let all the old men, your fathers, hear."
Then Quauhcoatl gathered the Mexicans together,
He had them hear the words of Huitzilopochtli;
The Mexicans listened.
And then, once more, they went in among the rushes, in among the
reeds,
To the edge of the spring.
And when they came out into the reeds,
There at the edge of the spring, was the Tenochtli,
And they saw and Eagle on the Tenochtli, perched on it, standing
on it.
It was eating something, it was feeding,
It was pecking at what it was eating.
And when the Eagle saw the Mexicans, he bowed his head low.
(They had only seen the Eagle from afar).
Its nest, its pallet, was of every kind of precious feather—
Of lovely cotinga feathers, roseate spoonbill feathers, quetzal
feathers.
And they also saw strewn about the heads of sundry birds,
The head of precious birds strung together,
And some bird's feet and bones.
And the god called out to them, he said to them,
"O Mexicans, it shall be here!"
(But the Mexicans did not see who spoke).
It is for this reason they call it Tenochtitlan.
And then the Mexicans wept, they said,
"O happy, O blessed are we!
We have beheld the city that shall be ours!
Let us go, now, let us rest…."
This was in the year 2-House, 1325."

It is very interesting to note the similarities to the Torah here as well. The nation escapes an enemy army over a body of water and then the people just want to call it quits. Then the whole nation upon traveling further sees the amazing vision of a shiny albino land which was prophesied and their god says aloud "O Mexicans, it shall be here!" and the people are overjoyed.

So yes, the source I found before was a rather modern romanticized version of the classic Aztec migration myth, but the original still has enough to undermine the Orthodox apologetic claims that no other people has ever had a national revelation besides the Israelites.

The Aztec's National Revelation

2007-06-11T11:46:00.000-04:00

Lately I've been doing some broad and more or less random research through the internet looking for all sorts of claims of great public miracles to see if any of them well compare to the claims made in the Torah, but the truth is that they are few in far between and few even approximate the kind of story found in the Book of Exodus. Not that this means that the story in the Book of Exodus is 100% accurate history, but it begs for an explanation for why the very claim is made so uniquely.

See, the fact is that it's difficult to get a sizeable and self-contained group of people in one place to observe a single event. Times where that even happens in normal life are few and far between. You can get a large number of people, but that's not self-contained, i.e. of a single ethnic or national group so the cultural memory of whatever kind of event is not lost through dispersal.

Additionally, not only need there be an event, but it has to be a claimed event of significant cultural magnitude so that the self-contained group of people will supposedly retain it and pass it on to their children.

Now, the second condition is generally a function of religion while the first is a function of ethnic history and rather infrequently are the two things combined in anything but the most ancient-type peoples, of which the Hebrews count.

So the key is not to search for the origins of religions, especially the popular ones, which tend to be universalistic or otherwise widespread. You need to search for significant events that happen to a whole tribe and of which's stories were passed down within the tribe. There were likely many such stories in the past back when there were many more independent ancient tribes and few popular religions, but no doubt most of those are lost to us today.

The Jews have the unique benefit, in a sense, of retaining that original tribal/cultural memory while surviving into the modern world. Most tribes did not. And it is for that reason that such like-claims are so rare to see today.

So anyway, the key types of myths that I then went searching for from that point were tribal origins myths and migration myths where the whole tribe is ostensibly in the same place at the same time and experiencing the same things. One can easily see how the Exodus story fits into the category of a migration myth. And so I came across story of the Aztec migration.

The story is rather long and involved and so I recommend that anyone who's interested should do a google search and read up on your own, but the basic story is found here.

"One day, the legends say, a strange bird told the Aztecs to leave their country. It flew over the White Land crying 'ti-hui, t-hui,' which are the Aztec words for 'we must go'.

What can this mean? cried the puzzled people. They quickly gathered together. "The bird is calling us, said the priests. "He wants us to follow him."

The bird flew off towards the south. The tribes chose one of their number, Tecpaltzin, to lead them. "We shall go," declared Tecpaltzin. "A new homeland awaits us."

And so it was decided. The men set to and built boats, and soon the Aztec people were able to cross the water.

The legend also tells us that eight tribes of the Nahuas Indians came from the Ancestral Cave. These tribes had settled on the southern bank of the river Colorado, and were amazed to see the Aztecs arriving in their boats.

"Where are you going?" the princes of the Nahuas asked them.

"To find a new homeland," replied Tecpaltzin. The Nahuas were very excited.

"May we come with you?" they asked eagerly. The Aztecs agreed, and so they set out together.

The Aztec tribes decided to make a statue of their sun and war god Huitzilopochtli. Then the war god spoke to them through the statue:

"I shall lead you. I shall fly with you in the shape of a white eagle, with a serpent in my beak. Follow me wherever I go. Where I settle, build a temple to me, with a bed for me to rest on. Build your houses round the temple, and destroy the villages you find there. Worship the eagle and the tiger, and be a brave and warlike people. That is my command."

So spoke the god Huitzilopochtli. He had given the Aztecs a great task: to be noble, fight for the truth, and keep order in the world. His words were symbolic. But the Aztecs misunderstood, and they thought they were to enslave other people, occupy their countries, destroy their homes and behave like tyrants. And that is what they did.

The Aztecs praised their god, and swore to obey him. They set off on the great journey with the Nahua tribes. Three priests and a priestess bore the god's statue on their shoulders on a bed of reeds. On they went until they reached a suitable place to set up camp.

It was getting on towards evening. The Aztecs built a mound of earth and set their god on it. But before they could eat they heard cries coming from the tree. Alarmed they look up at the top of the tree, and at that moment, it split in two. They were terrified, for they knew this must be a sign from their god. They fell to their knees, weeping. Suddenly the god began to speak: "Wait, my Aztecs. you must part from the Nahua tribes. Call them here and tell them they must make their way alone." Tecpaltzin summonded the Nahua chief. "Our god has spoken" he announced.

"We are listening," replied the chiefs.

"He has ordered us to wait. The time has come to say goodbye."

The Nahuas were very sad. "But what about us?" they asked.

"You must go on without us," Tecpaltzin told them.

"Can't we stay with you?" asked the Nahuas asked sadly.

But Huitzilopochtli had forbidden it, for he did not wish his people to share the promised land with the Nahuas. So the Nahuas parted from the Aztecs and went on their way alone.

...

Then, for some years, they lived at Tollan, which people now call Tula. Up and down over Mexico, hither and thither they wandered. Not until the year 1216, after a migration that had lasted for nearly 60 years, did they come upon Anåhuac, the high plateau valley.

They stopped dumbstruck. Far below stretched the high plateau, dotted with lakes and bordered by mountains. It was, the ancient legends tell, a "Field of Dazzling Whiteness". Everything seemed to be brilliant white: the trees, the reeds, the meadows, the water - even the fish and the frogs. Were they really all so white, or was it simply that the new Mexicans were blinded by the beauty unfolding before their eyes?

The people fell to their knees and prayed. The chiefs and the priests wept with joy.

"At last we have come to our sacred land," they told the Mexicans. "It is Anåhuac, the Land by the Water. Our wishes have been granted. Rejoice, everyone. Rejoice, for our god has led us to the promised land." But could their wanderings really be over? Anxiously they awaited a sign from their god.

And suddenly the voice of Huitzilopochtli thundered forth.

"Stay, Mexicans! With all your strength and all your wisdom, make this country your own. Though you sweat blood and tears, you shall win what you have been seeking. Gold and silver, precious stones and splendid finery shall be your reward. You shall harvest cocoa, and cotton, and many fruits. Beautiful gardens will delight your eyes. This is your country!"

Wow, now doesn't that sound awfully similar to another story we've heard? The Aztecs considered themselves the 'chosen people' of Huitzilopochtli who lead them on their journey to a promised land. And apparently, through that time was a period of wandering the wilderness where their god spoke to them a good number of times. Especially impressive is that last time where it makes it clear that Huitzilopochtli was heard by the whole people.

In the part that skipped, Huitzilopochtli tells them to not longer go by the name Aztec, but by Mexica - and this is the founding story of Tenochtitlan, which became the capitol city of the Aztec Empire and is today located under modern Mexico City.

*To note though, this is only a very recent field of study for me and I have not confirmed this story's accuracy. There is a real paucity of data on the internet about it. I guess there aren't enough Aztecs around. So I ordered a book that is supposed to have good data on this subject and then I'll be able to confirm, or qualify as needed.

Buddha's Many Miracles

2007-06-10T17:10:00.000-04:00

Each year there are four special days: They are the day of miracles, the day the Buddha was enlightened, the day the Buddha first taught the four noble truths, and the day he descended from the god realm of Tushita to Jambudvipa. There are six realms and in the human realm there are four great continents and eight subcontinents. The continent we live on is Jambudvipa.

According to the lunar calendar the first month is the miracle month. When Shakyamuni was forty, six great Hindu teachers, who represented the six schools of Hinduism that existed at the time, challenged Shakyamuni to a competition of miracles. At that time great kings and noble families sponsored teachers who could perform miracles. So Buddha accepted the challenge. He accepted because many would be benefited and achieve the arhat state and people of the future would be inspired to practice as a result of his demonstration. The first day to the fifteenth of the first month are precious and the fifteenth is especially great. The competition happened in the Bihar in India at Sravasti. 80,000 Buddhists and 84,000 Hindus attended the competition.

On the first day Buddha held his toothpick, put it on the ground and it turned to the wish fulfilling tree. It was decorated with jewels, like a Christmas tree. On the second day Buddha manifested two wish fulfilling jewels. The third day the king offered to wash Buddha's feet. When Buddha washed his feet, he threw the water and it became a pool with the eight special qualities of water. Whoever drank or touched it were healed. Today there is a well there where small amounts of water are offered for sale. It is useful for treating disease. On the fourth day it rained and the rain filled the eight canals. The fifth day Buddha emitted golden light from his mouth and people could see beings of the six realms being liberated. On the sixth day Buddha transformed some energy and everyone became clairvoyant and knew each others minds. On the seventh day Buddha manifested as the wheel turning king and many people converted to Buddhism. Up to that time the Hindu teachers had not shown miracles. On the eighth day the gods from Indra's palace sponsored the meals. They served Buddha and made offerings to him. Buddha's hand pressed the side of his seat and a thundering sound was emitted. Five frightening giant cannibals came out of the ground and they went for the seats of the Hindu teachers. Vajrapani also threatened the Hindu teachers. The Hindu teachers ran away. Vajrapani manifested a great storm. It became a tornado which picked up the Hindu teachers and their retinues and tossed them in the water. 60,000 Hindus converted that day and many monks attained the arhat's state and understanding. The gods showered flowers.

Some believe the eighth of the first month is the Buddha's birthday. Others believe the fifteenth of the fourth month is Buddha's birthday. Why do some believe the eighth. When Buddha dwelt at Sravasti, where he was for twenty four years, they were not allowed to build on the land were the monks camped The monks were required to live under a tree or in a small hut or tent. The land in Sravasti had three land owners. The land owner asked when is your birthday. Buddha replied in the first lunar month. Some marked his birthday then, according to the Vedic calendars.

The first to eighth day are the competition days. From the eighth to the fifteenth, Buddha showed miracles without competition. On the eighth day Buddha grew his body until the Brahma realm was under his chin. On the tenth day Buddha's body grew to the top of Akanishta. On the eleventh day, the Buddha he was not visible but the sound of his voice was heard everywhere. On the twelfth day light from his body radiated to all of samsara and developed loving kindness in all. On the thirteenth day Buddha manifested light from the spot between his eyebrows, filling all space with Buddhas, all who taught the dharma. On the fourteenth day the flowers that were offered by the gods filled all of space and on each flower a Buddha manifested and taught. On the fifteenth day Buddha gave the energy so that all beings could see all the six realms. Many people converted to Buddhism after seeing the lower realms with their own eyes. There are eight great stupas. One is called the miracle stupa and was built to commemorate this event. So that is the first great day., the day of miracles, from the first to the fifteenth of the first month. Tibetans celebrate the new year at this time.

http://buddhism.inbaltimore.org/holy_days.html

"When the time came for the contest, the Buddha cast a mango seed on the ground; instantly the seed took root, and a great mango tree arose to shade the hall. After defeating the six philosophers and converting them to his teaching, the Enlightened One performed the Great Miracle of the Pairs.

"Standing in the air at the height of a palm tree, flames englufed the lower part of his body, and five hundred jets of water streamed from the upper part. Then flames leapt from the upper part of his body, and five hundreds jets of water streamed from the lower part. Then by his magic power, the Blessed one transformed himself into a bull with a quivering hump. Appearing in the east, the bull vanished and reappeared in the west. Vanishing in the west, it reappeared in the north. Vanishing in the north, it reappeared in the south. ... Several thousand kotis* of beings, seeing this great miracle, became glad, joyful, and pleased."

-Mahavastu (Buddhist scripture)

*A koti is equal to 10 million.

http://www.buddhismtoday.com/english/holyplaces/004-shravasti.htm

Now that's a pretty public series of miracles, eh?

P.S. Pass on this little nugget to the next person who tries to convince you that Buddhism is not a religion.

The Milk Miracle

2007-06-10T04:28:00.000-04:00

Presented below [from here] is the story that shocked the world on September 21, 1995 - the day when the Murtis of Ganesh Ji around the world started to accept milk that was offered.
...

The Supernatural Event of This Century Is Experienced Simultaneously Worldwide

It all began on September 21st 1995 when an otherwise ordinary man in New Delhi dreamed that Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed God of Wisdom, craved a little milk. Upon awakening, he rushed in the dark before dawn to the nearest temple, where a skeptical priest allowed him to offer a spoonful of milk to the small stone image. Both watched in astonishment as it disappeared, magically consumed by the God. What followed is unprecedented in modern Hindu history. Within hours news had spread like a brush fire across India that Ganesha was accepting milk offerings. Tens of millions of people of all ages flocked to the nation's temples. The unworldly happening brought worldly New Delhi to a standstill, and its vast stocks of milk-more than a million liters-sold out within hours. Just as suddenly as it started in India, it stopped in just 24 hours.

But it was just beginning elsewhere as Hindus in India called their relatives in other parts of the world. Soon our Hinduism Today offices were flooded with reports from around the world. Everywhere the story was the same. A teaspoonful of milk offered by touching it to Ganesha's trunk, tusk or mouth would disappear in a few seconds to a few minutes, not always, but with unprecedented frequency. Reuters news service quoted Anila Premji, "I held the spoon out level, and it just disappeared. To me it was just a miracle. It gave me a sense of feeling that there is a God, a sense of Spirit on this Earth." Not only Ganesha, but Siva, Parvati, Nandi and the Naga, Siva's snake, took milk.

Here it is on wiki:

The Hindu milk miracle was a phenomenon reported to have occurred on September 21, 1995. Before dawn, a Hindu worshipper at a temple in south New Delhi made an offering of milk to a statue of Lord Ganesha. When a spoonful of milk from the bowl was held up to the trunk of the statue, the liquid was seen to disappear, apparently taken in by the idol. Word of the event spread quickly, and by mid-morning it was found that statues of the entire Hindu pantheon in temples all over North India were taking in milk, with the family of Shiva (Parvati, Ganesha, and Kartikeya) apparently the "thirstiest". By noon the news had spread beyond India, and Hindu temples in Britain, Canada, Dubai, and Nepal among other countries had successfully replicated the phenomenon, and the World Hindu Council (an Indian Hindu organisation) had announced that a miracle was occurring.

The apparent miracle had a significant effect on the areas around major temples; vehicle and pedestrian traffic in New Delhi was dense enough to create a gridlock lasting until late in the evening. Many stores in areas with significant Hindu communities saw a massive jump in sales of milk, with one Gateway store in England selling over 25,000 pints of milk,and overall milk sales in New Delhi jumped over 30%. Many minor temples struggled to deal with the vast increase in numbers, and queues spilled out into the streets.

And here's a video.

So, can millions of eye witnesses in India and all over the world be wrong? Or are you going to convert to Hinduism now?

Curiously, though, Deut. 4:28 has this to say, "There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell."

Nothing about drinking there.

Null Hypothesis

2007-06-05T19:49:00.000-04:00

One thing that I hear pretty frequently from atheist circles is that given the question of God, since there is no evidence supporting that hypothesis (something I'd contest, anyway) they simply select the null hypothesis saying that there is no God. On the face of it that kind of formulation seems pretty reasonable. - it even has the nice scientific jargon to make it look like it holds authority, but what really is the question and the real null hypothesis?

The real question is not "Does God exist?" - but "How can we explain existence?" and "What is the nature of existence?" If these were taken to be scientific questions then scientific hypotheses in the form of the numerous theological theories out there could be used to answer them. And the null hypothesis? The null hypothesis is that existence and its nature are due to nothing but chance. The null hypothesis is not the rejection of another hypothesis, but the statistical assertion that chance alone is responsible for the results. Even the claiming of ignorance does not a null hypothesis make. It is the assertion of chance.

Now, maybe some people find the chance assertion to be reasonable, but I don't. There are way too many awesome things happening in our universe to chock it all up to luck. Even in the absence of stringent scientific results, I am lead to believe that the null hypothesis is missing something big.

Furthermore, of course, the atheist must still explain how chance itself can operate in non-existence which 'preceded' our universe. Usually they will posit some sort of Superuniverse which has the power to produce a great number of universes and we just lucked out that one was made which could support life.

But one must note how this Superuniverse Hypothesis is no longer a null hypothesis at all - it is a very specific idea about the higher order of existence. And, of course, it must be noted that this hypothesis has no scientific evidence to support it. So why should they accept this hypothesis with its same dearth of evidence (I would say a worse dearth) over any God Hypothesis which they so strongly object to? They only prefer the Superuniverse because it leaves out God, not because of any inner strength to the idea.

It's hardly a scientific issue - it's just philosophical bias.

Heil Chavez!

2007-05-28T01:41:00.000-04:00

Chavez pulls a Stalin:

Chavez closes opposition TV station; thousands protest

...

President Hugo Chavez announced in January that the government would not renew the broadcast license for the station, long an outlet for opposition parties.

Chavez has accused the station of supporting the failed 2002 coup against him and violating broadcast laws.

He called the station's soap operas "pure poison" that promote capitalism, according to AP.

RCTV, which has been broadcasting for 53 years, is slated to be off the air at midnight. It will be replaced by a state-run station.

"To refuse to grant a new license for the most popular and oldest television channel in the country because the government disagrees with the editorial or political views of this channel, which are obviously critical to Chavez, is a case of censorship," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

"We have arrived at totalitarianism," said Marcel Granier, president of Empresas 1BC, which owns RCTV."

You might think the world would learn. If I were in Venezuela right now I would be doing my best to catch the next flight away from that 'worker's paradise.'

Quasi-Religious Souls

2007-05-25T16:36:00.000-04:00

Found this here, from Arama's link on GH's blog. From today's NY Times:

The Catholic Boom, by David Brooks:

"The pope and many others speak for the thoroughly religious. Christopher Hitchens has the latest best seller on behalf of the antireligious. But who speaks for the quasi-religious?

Quasi-religious people attend services, but they’re bored much of the time. They read the Bible, but find large parts of it odd and irrelevant. They find themselves inextricably bound to their faith, but think some of the people who define it are nuts.

Whatever the state of their ambivalent souls, quasi-religious people often drive history. Abraham Lincoln knew scripture line by line but never quite shared the faith that mesmerized him. Quasi-religious Protestants, drifting anxiously from the certainties of their old religion, built Victorian England. Quasi-religious Jews, climbing up from ancestral orthodoxy, helped shape 20th-century American culture."

...

"In fact, if you really wanted to supercharge the nation, you’d fill it with college students who constantly attend church, but who are skeptical of everything they hear there. For there are at least two things we know about flourishing in a modern society.

First, college students who attend religious services regularly do better than those that don’t. As Margarita Mooney, a Princeton sociologist, has demonstrated in her research, they work harder and are more engaged with campus life. Second, students who come from denominations that encourage dissent are more successful, on average, than students from denominations that don’t.

This embodies the social gospel annex to the quasi-religious creed: Always try to be the least believing member of one of the more observant sects. Participate in organized religion, but be a friendly dissident inside. Ensconce yourself in traditional moral practice, but champion piecemeal modernization. Submit to the wisdom of the ages, but with one eye open.

The problem is nobody is ever going to write a book sketching out the full quasi-religious recipe for life. The message “God is Great” appeals to billions. Hitchens rides the best-seller list with “God is Not Great.” Nobody wants to read a book called “God is Right Most of the Time.”

Getting the best of both worlds, hmm...

Going After Rabbi Gottlieb

2007-05-21T20:13:00.000-04:00

I was challenged to go after Rabbi Gottlieb's defense of the Kuzari argument, so I did. Read on...

http://www.dovidgottlieb.com/comments/Kuzari_Principle_Intro.htm

This is Rabbi Gottlieb's version of the Kuzari argument. He gives two reasons why the gradual myth formation is not convincing. The first one is that the critics don't give any specific means by which the myth evolved and therefore there is no way to judge the plausibility.

But this is a poor argument. There are details in the traditional view that are literally miraculous and hence impossible to explain. Even an implausible myth generation is still more plausible than the impossible since it requires no magic to accomplish.

But even with that said, I think I can produce a very reasonable means by which the myth came to be. Moses was a real person who made a real speech in front of a real group of Israelites on a real mountain after he had helped them escape from slavery in Egypt. This is an entirely plausible event. I would say that he even ordered some laws from the mountain. I would even say that Moses spent some time alone on the mountain while he composed some text that he believed was spoken to him from God.

Is it so difficult to imagine this event becoming aggrandized over time? All the key players are already there. What's a few miracles and fireworks to work into the story over the course of centuries?

Rabbi Gottlieb provides his strawman scenario where all the ancient Israelites experienced was an earthquake, but there's no reason at all to be so minimalistic.

Rabbi Gottlieb's second reason is that there are no other examples of 'fictitious national unforgettables' meaning an event that would have been of vital importance to a nation but would not be true.

But this too is a strawman because 'myth' does not mean that the event is made up from nothing. As above, the Sinai story isn't strictly fiction, but a melding of truth and embellishment. And there are numerous examples of myths like that happening.

One excellent one is the great Kurukshetra War of ancient India. It was a great war, as recorded in the Hindu epic Mahabharata, that lasted only 18 days and brought the entire sub-continent to war. It involved almost every kingdom, save one, and had the combined total of almost four million soldiers counting both sides. An event of this magnitude would be impossible for the Indians to forget, but is it strictly true?

In the course of the war, fighters use numerous magical weapons, talk to various gods, and in the end there are only seven survivors. (But do note that I'm not depending on the battle survivors to validate the story, but for the rest of the Indian population which had to have known of this war and lived through the effects of depopulation.)

So was there an a Kurukshetra War? Probably. As Rabbi Gottlieb says, it's very difficult to make something like a national epic up and have people believe it. But are the details all correct? Did four million people really go to war? Were there really only seven survivors? Did they really use magic and talk to gods? I think those are just embellishments on a true story.

Joshua's Mark on the Torah

2007-05-21T18:29:00.000-04:00

I just realized found this little doozy today. Has anyone read the Book of Joshua? Check out the last chapter, chapter 24. The conquest is apparently all wrapped up and Joshua is speaking to the people to renew the covenant that they made at Sinai. But look what's written as he's finishing up:

כב וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אֶל-הָעָם, עֵדִים אַתֶּם בָּכֶם, כִּי-אַתֶּם בְּחַרְתֶּם לָכֶם אֶת-יְהוָה, לַעֲבֹד אוֹתוֹ; וַיֹּאמְרוּ, עֵדִים. כג וְעַתָּה, הָסִירוּ אֶת-אֱלֹהֵי הַנֵּכָר אֲשֶׁר בְּקִרְבְּכֶם; וְהַטּוּ, אֶת-לְבַבְכֶם, אֶל-יְהוָה, אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל. כד וַיֹּאמְרוּ הָעָם, אֶל-יְהוֹשֻׁעַ: אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ נַעֲבֹד, וּבְקוֹלוֹ נִשְׁמָע. כה וַיִּכְרֹת יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בְּרִית לָעָם, בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא; וַיָּשֶׂם לוֹ חֹק וּמִשְׁפָּט, בִּשְׁכֶם. כו וַיִּכְתֹּב יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה, בְּסֵפֶר תּוֹרַת אֱלֹהִים; וַיִּקַּח, אֶבֶן גְּדוֹלָה, וַיְקִימֶהָ שָּׁם, תַּחַת הָאַלָּה אֲשֶׁר בְּמִקְדַּשׁ יְהוָה.
כז וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אֶל-כָּל-הָעָם, הִנֵּה הָאֶבֶן הַזֹּאת תִּהְיֶה-בָּנוּ לְעֵדָה--כִּי-הִיא שָׁמְעָה אֵת כָּל-אִמְרֵי יְהוָה, אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר עִמָּנוּ; וְהָיְתָה בָכֶם לְעֵדָה, פֶּן-תְּכַחֲשׁוּן בֵּאלֹהֵיכֶם. כח וַיְשַׁלַּח יְהוֹשֻׁעַ אֶת-הָעָם, אִישׁ לְנַחֲלָתוֹ.

"22 Then Joshua said, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD." "Yes, we are witnesses," they replied.
23 "Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel."
24 And the people said to Joshua, "We will serve the LORD our God and obey him."
25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he drew up for them decrees and laws.
26 And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the LORD.
27 "See!" he said to all the people. "This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.
28 Then Joshua sent the people away, each to his own inheritance. "

The first question is naturally why they would still have any foreign gods left with them to throw away, but that can be easily answered in a few ways. The really remarkable issue is what takes place in p'sukim 25-26 where Joshua is apparently making up a covenant and laws and recording them in the God's "Sefer Torah." It's mentioned so nonchalantly in the text, but it stands in direct conflict with the popular Orthodox belief that the entire Torah was fixed and written by Moshe.

Targum Yonatan makes no changes to the words and Rashi relates one view that this is referring merely to the last eight verses of the Torah, but there is no reason to presume that. It doesn't even make any sense in context. He also relates another view that Joshua chose this time to copy the chapter on refuge cities from the Torah to his own book. But that doesn't make any sense in context either.

Egyptians and the Unclean Pig

2007-05-21T17:50:00.000-04:00

"The pig is regarded among them as an unclean animal, so much so that if a man in passing accidentally touch a pig, he instantly hurries to the river, and plunges in with all his clothes on. Hence, too, the swineherds, notwithstanding that they are of pure Egyptian blood, are forbidden to enter into any of the temples, which are open to all other Egyptians; and further, no one will give his daughter in marriage to a swineherd, or take a wife from among them, so that the swineherds are forced to intermarry among themselves. They do not offer swine in sacrifice to any of their gods, excepting Bacchus and the Moon, whom they honour in this way at the same time, sacrificing pigs to both of them at the same full moon, and afterwards eating of the flesh. There is a reason alleged by them for their detestation of swine at all other seasons, and their use of them at this festival, with which I am well acquainted, but which I do not think it proper to mention. The following is the mode in which they sacrifice the swine to the Moon:- As soon as the victim is slain, the tip of the tail, the spleen, and the caul are put together, and having been covered with all the fat that has been found in the animal's belly, are straightway burnt. The remainder of the flesh is eaten on the same day that the sacrifice is offered, which is the day of the full moon: at any other time they would not so much as taste it. The poorer sort, who cannot afford live pigs, form pigs of dough, which they bake and offer in sacrifice.

To Bacchus, on the eve of his feast, every Egyptian sacrifices a hog before the door of his house, which is then given back to the swineherd by whom it was furnished, and by him carried away. In other respects the festival is celebrated almost exactly as Bacchic festivals are in Greece, excepting that the Egyptians have no choral dances. They also use instead of phalli another invention, consisting of images a cubit high, pulled by strings, which the women carry round to the villages. A piper goes in front, and the women follow, singing hymns in honour of Bacchus. They give a religious reason for the peculiarities of the image. "

-Herodotus, Book 2

Egyptians considered the pig an unclean animal. Hmmm...

The Best of All Possible Theodicies

2007-05-20T14:16:00.000-04:00

For a long time I have been rather contemptuous at attempts of theodicy. This is because most of the attempts make a mockery out of some deeply important matter or they somehow undermine exactly what they were trying to defend.

But there is one answer that I have found which seems to do a fairly good job at it without causing any serious metaphysical casualties. This would be Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds" solution. In it, God is constrained based on the inherent nature of the world He's creating to balance opposing values and in God's mathematics there is a required minimum of evil that must exist in order for the world to be possible. Indeed, perhaps at each moment, God is doing His divine calculus and selecting (perhaps through being the ultimate observer in Quantum Physics) the world with the least amount of evil in it.

The focus point where this argument seems to depend on is that God is not as omnipotent as previously thought. For if He's constricted by the nature of the universe then He cannot do 'anything.' But this is an old issue and is really as relevant as God not being able to create a rock that He cannot lift. It is a logical impossibility. So too, it is simply a logical impossibility to create a world desired by God without some evil in it.

As JA relates a counterargument, "But doesn’t that limit God’s knowledge and power? Doesn’t that say that God couldn’t think of a better way to accomplish his goals other than torturing innocent people?"

The answer is, as explained above, yes, it is a limit of sorts on God's power. And no, there is no better way.

It is rather easy for us in our limited perspectives to scoff at this and say how simple it might be to change this or that little detail and make the world a much better place - thus undermining the whole concept that the world is already the best. For example, mightn't the world be a much better place if God gave Hitler a heart attack in his youth? But the truth of the matter is that we have no idea if the world would, in fact, be any better. It could be much worse.

If you've ever seen any of those movies like the Butterfly Effect or famous Twilight Zone episodes (or even that one from the Simpsons) where people who think they're being clever travel back in time to fix something that went wrong in the past, they never appreciate the intricacies of the timeline and inevitably only manage to make things worse (Dr. Sam Becket, notwithstanding). The point is that it's easy to say that something could be made better with some little change here or there, but without the absolute perspective - which only God can have - such notions are due to mere ignorance.

A good article on the topic: here.

Atheists in Kollel?

2007-04-24T13:14:00.000-04:00

"Our Rabbis taught: When R. Eleazar b. Perata and R. Hanina b. Teradion were arrested, R. Eleazar b. Perata said to R. Hanina b. Teradion: Happy art thou that thou hast been arrested on one charge; woe is me, for I am arrested on five charges. R. Hanina replied: Happy art thou, who hast been arrested on five charges, but wilt be rescued; woe is me who, though having been arrested on one charge, will not be rescued; for thou hast occupied thyself with [the study of] the Torah as well as with acts of benevolence, whereas I occupied myself with Torah alone.

This accords with the opinion of R. Huna. For R. Huna said: He who only occupies himself with the study of the Torah is as if he had no God, for it is said: Now for long seasons Israel was without the true God. What is meant by 'without the true God'? — It means that he who only occupies himself with the study of the Torah is as if he had no God."

-Talmud, Avodah Zara 17b

Interesting, no?

Mill and the Liberty from Orthodoxy

2007-04-18T16:03:00.000-04:00

I've been reading John Stuart Mill, the great English philosopher, proponent of Utilitarianism, as of late and I found one of his essays titled "Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion" very interesting and appropriate in a surprising number of respects given that it refers to a social situation of 150 years in the past. The point of the article is to defend the very concept of free speech and discussion in all cases even for situations where a belief is unanimously believed to be true and there is no apparent utility in considering other views or potential weaknesses in the unanimously held view itself. It may be a relevant essay for those Jews of dogmatic persuasions to explain how even if heresy is actually false, there are still yet very good reasons to allow it to be discussed openly. (And if it is true then the reasons are all the more better.)

One time when I was discussing such topics with a friend of mine she had opined that if Orthodoxy is truly true then it would be foolish to start bringing up difficulties with the doctrines. There would be weak minds who would be bothered by such things and they could find themselves being pulled off the derech. Better to keep any such difficulties to oneself and let the gedolim (however they may be defined) deal with the issues in their advanced and surely competent way.

This would be Mill's response:

To abate the force of these considerations, an enemy of free discussion may be supposed to say, that there is no necessity for mankind in general to know and understand all that can be said against or for their opinions by philosophers and theologians. That it is not needful for common men to be able to expose all the misstatements or fallacies of an ingenious opponent. That it is enough if there is always somebody capable of answering them, so that nothing likely to mislead uninstructed persons remains unrefuted. That simple minds, having been taught the obvious grounds of the truths inculcated on them, may trust to authority for the rest, and being aware that they have neither knowledge nor talent to resolve every difficulty which can be raised, may repose in the assurance that all those which have been raised have been or can be answered, by those who are specially trained to the task.

Conceding to this view of the subject the utmost that can be claimed for it by those most easily satisfied with the amount of understanding of truth which ought to accompany the belief of it; even so, the argument for free discussion is no way weakened. For even this doctrine acknowledges that mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all objections have been satisfactorily answered; and how are they to be answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? or how can the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory? If not the public, at least the philosophers and theologians who are to resolve the difficulties, must make themselves familiar with those difficulties in their most puzzling form; and this cannot be accomplished unless they are freely stated, and placed in the most advantageous light which they admit of. The Catholic Church [and the Haredi world!] has its own way of dealing with this embarrassing problem. It makes a broad separation between those who can be permitted to receive its doctrines on conviction, and those who must accept them on trust. Neither, indeed, are allowed any choice as to what they will accept; but the clergy, such at least as can be fully confided in, may admissibly and meritoriously make themselves acquainted with the arguments of opponents, in order to answer them, and may, therefore, read heretical books; the laity, not unless by special permission, hard to be obtained. This discipline recognises a knowledge of the enemy's case as beneficial to the teachers, but finds means, consistent with this, of denying it to the rest of the world: thus giving to the élite more mental culture, though not more mental freedom, than it allows to the mass. By this device it succeeds in obtaining the kind of mental superiority which its purposes require; for though culture without freedom never made a large and liberal mind, it can make a clever nisi prius advocate of a cause.

...............

On the costs to humankind through enforcing an Orthodoxy:

A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the general principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth, whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and interest to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then: while that which would strengthen and enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.

Those in whose eyes this reticence on the part of heretics is no evil, should consider in the first place, that in consequence of it there is never any fair and thorough discussion of heretical opinions; and that such of them as could not stand such a discussion, though they may be prevented from spreading, do not disappear. But it is not the minds of heretics that are deteriorated most, by the ban placed on all inquiry which does not end in the orthodox conclusions. The greatest harm done is to those who are not heretics, and whose whole mental development is cramped, and their reason cowed, by the fear of heresy. Who can compute what the world loses in the multitude of promising intellects combined with timid characters, who dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, independent train of thought, lest it should land them in something which would admit of being considered irreligious or immoral? Among them we may occasionally see some man of deep conscientiousness, and subtle and refined understanding, who spends a life in sophisticating with an intellect which he cannot silence, and exhausts the resources of ingenuity in attempting to reconcile the promptings of his conscience and reason with orthodoxy, which yet he does not, perhaps, to the end succeed in doing. No one can be a great thinker who does not recognise, that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think. Not that it is solely, or chiefly, to form great thinkers, that freedom of thinking is required. On the contrary, it is as much and even more indispensable, to enable average human beings to attain the mental stature which they are capable of. There have been, and may again be, great individual thinkers, in a general atmosphere of mental slavery. But there never has been, nor ever will be, in that atmosphere, an intellectually active people.

............

On the benefits of debating the issues:

As mankind improve, the number of doctrines which are no longer disputed or doubted will be constantly on the increase: and the well-being of mankind may almost be measured by the number and gravity of the truths which have reached the point of being uncontested. The cessation, on one question after another, of serious controversy, is one of the necessary incidents of the consolidation of opinion; a consolidation as salutary in the case of true opinions, as it is dangerous and noxious when the opinions are erroneous. But though this gradual narrowing of the bounds of diversity of opinion is necessary in both senses of the term, being at once inevitable and indispensable, we are not therefore obliged to conclude that all its consequences must be beneficial. The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent and living apprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity of explaining it to, or defending it against, opponents, though not sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefit of its universal recognition. Where this advantage can no longer be had, I confess I should like to see the teachers of mankind endeavouring to provide a substitute for it; some contrivance for making the difficulties of the question as present to the learner's consciousness, as if they were pressed upon him by a dissentient champion, eager for his conversion.

But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost those they formerly had. The Socratic dialectics, so magnificently exemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this description. They were essentially a negative discussion of the great questions of philosophy and life, directed with consummate skill to the purpose of convincing any one who had merely adopted the commonplaces of received opinion, that he did not understand the subject—that he as yet attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed; in order that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the way to attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of the meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The school disputations of the middle ages had a somewhat similar object. They were intended to make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and (by necessary correlation) the opinion opposed to it, and could enforce the grounds of the one and confute those of the other. These last-mentioned contests had indeed the incurable defect, that the premises appealed to were taken from authority, not from reason; and, as a discipline to the mind, they were in every respect inferior to the powerful dialectics which formed the intellects of the "Socratici viri:" but the modern mind owes far more to both than it is generally willing to admit, and the present modes of education contain nothing which in the smallest degree supplies the place either of the one or of the other. A person who derives all his instruction from teachers or books, even if he escape the besetting temptation of contenting himself with cram, is under no compulsion to hear both sides; accordingly it is far from a frequent accomplishment, even among thinkers, to know both sides; and the weakest part of what everybody says in defence of his opinion, is what he intends as a reply to antagonists. It is the fashion of the present time to disparage negative logic—that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors in practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative criticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result; but as a means to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the name, it cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again systematically trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a low general average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and physical departments of speculation. On any other subject no one's opinions deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either had forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same mental process which would have been required of him in carrying on an active controversy with opponents. That, therefore, which when absent, it is so indispensable, but so difficult, to create, how worse than absurd is it to forego, when spontaneously offering itself! If there are any persons who contest a received opinion, or who will do so if law or opinion will let them, let us thank them for it, open our minds to listen to them, and rejoice that there is some one to do for us what we otherwise ought, if we have any regard for either the certainty or the vitality of our convictions, to do with much greater labor for ourselves.

...............

Summary:

We have now recognised the necessity to the mental well-being of mankind (on which all their other well-being depends) of freedom of opinion, and freedom of the expression of opinion, on four distinct grounds; which we will now briefly recapitulate.

First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.

Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds. And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.

To read this Essay in full, see here.

For the Record or 'Gimme a PB&J Hillel'

2007-04-13T02:07:00.000-04:00

"Hillel the Elder is often credited as having been the inventor of the "sandwich" in the 1st century B.C.E. well over a thousand years before John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich.

"This is based on a part of the Passover Seder (the annual commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt), in the section of Korech, where the Haggadah, the ancient liturgy, instructs participants to take the matzo and wrap it around the bitter herbs and eat them together whilst saying in Hebrew: This is a remembrance of Hillel in Temple times - This is what Hillel did when the Temple existed: he used to enwrap the Paschal lamb, the matzo and the bitter herbs and eat them as one. In the Ashkenazi tradition the usual practice is to do this by making a matzo and lettuce/horseradish sandwich."

And to think, all we credit for are bagels.

Land of the Infidel

2007-03-27T01:36:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not talking about America but Kafiristan - yes, believe it or not, it's a real place. And ironically it's in Afghanistan.

Kafiristan or Kafirstan ("Land of the Infidel" in Persian) was a historic name of Nurestan (Nuristan), a province in the Hindukush region of Afghanistan. This historic region lies on, and mainly comprises, basins of the rivers Alingar, Pech (Kamah), Landai Sin, and Kunar, and the intervening mountain ranges. It is bounded by the main range of the Hindukush on the north, the Pakistani border on the east, the Kunar Valley in the south, and the Alishang River in the west.

Kafiristan takes its name from the inhabitants, the Kafirs, a fiercely independent people with distinctive culture, language and religion. In 1896 the country was conquered and forcibly converted to Islam by the Emir Abdur Rahman Khan, who renamed the people as Nuristani ("Enlightened Ones" in Persian) and the land as Nuristan ("Land of the Enlightened").

While the etymology is contested by some it was used and understood as 'The Land of the Infidel" by the neighboring Muslims.

I just think that jblogosphere tends to get a bit narrow-sighted when the only considered possibilities are Judaism (somewhere along the spectrum) or non-Judaism. From the Muslim perspective (one fifth of the planet, mind you) we're all kaffirs anyway. It seems to put things in some perspective.

Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm: Existentialist

2007-03-16T17:08:00.000-04:00

Wow, I hadn't realized Rabbi Dr. Norman Lamm was such an existentialist.

It's very interesting to me how his paper follows so many of the themes that I've been thinking through this past long while. That it is better to open one's mind to speculative truth even while the danger of falsehood may enter, for it may be worse to close one's mind to everything, thus locking truth out. And that faith-acts, like Halacha, demonstrate a key trust, a 'faith-in', even while substantive cognitive doubts may exist as merely theoretical problems.

Ironically, while all of these ideas help me to understand the most crucial of religious ideas - i.e. metaphysics and the object of faith in itself, they don't help at all when we bring simple historical propositions into the picture. Exodus, revelation, the validity of our mesorah. He glosses over these kinds of concepts at the beginning of his paper but these are not the abstract philosophical issues that can be dealt with by existentialist philosophies. For the Orthodox system they are true out of dogmatic necessity, but how can the skeptical intellectual (I flatter myself) take that as reason enough to believe?

I don't wonder how Rabbi Lamm dealt with those issues, but I wonder how Dr. Lamm does.

All Faiths are Not Created Equal

2007-03-11T16:12:00.000-04:00

To Ben Avuyah on the matter of the equivalence of all faith claims:

"Of course, people can claim they have faith in God's overwhelming morality, but that is the end of all reasoned argument, as all faith claims, dependant on the absence of evidence, are equall, and get dumped in the same hole with healing crystals and scientology."

It's easy to disregard faith. I've done it myself for quite some time, but I think eventually one must realize that if you don't want to sink into the bottomless pit of existential meaninglessness then you need to put your faith in something.

There comes a point where so much argument is just white noise.

Naturally, evidence-based thinking is superior in most respects, but when one reaches the limits of human knowledge I believe we ought to allow ourselves a measure of guiltless speculation.

I do not believe all faith claims are equal as some are coherent while others are not. Some are internally consistent while others are not. Some conflict with the known facts while others exist external to them.

I see little wrong with a coherent, internally consistent belief system that conflicts with no known facts. That's hardly science, of course, but that is religion. It has its place.

On Fasting and the Place of Judaism

2007-03-08T18:25:00.000-05:00

This is a response to Michelle's problem with regard to her understanding spiritual development to be the primary concern in life, specifically vis a vis her reported dislike for fasting because it interferes with regular life:

Purposefully depriving your body of nourishment and hydration is generally unpleasant. If you did like it then you would probably be suffering from some mental disorder.

Personally, I can fast for a day pretty easily, so most times I don't mind it that much - but it's not something I look forward to either.

In any case, the point of fasting is not just to 'do your duty' as is the common poor conception, but as a means to change your way of thinking. It is to understand why you fast and to grow in character and spirituality (whatever that means exactly).

Too much of modern Judaism consists of doing what you think you have to and being 'covered' rather than looking beneath the surface and understanding the messages that underline the actions and traditional rituals. See Isaiah 58:5-6*. If all you accomplished from fasting was being hungry then you accomplished nothing.

Yes, Judaism interrupts regular life - often by design - but that doesn't mean regular life is not important. Having a job, a family, enjoying life - these are all important supporting beams for life that exist complementary with personal development. A good Jew is not a monk - he is a person who lives in the real world while remaining mindful of the lessons of Jewish tradition. And an interruption now and then helps make that possible.

* "5 [Sarcastically] Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"

On Hashgacha Pratis

2007-03-08T18:20:00.000-05:00

(As seen on XGH's blog as a recent comment:)

I tend to look at 'hashgacha pratis' in the sense that if Jews, as a community, adhere to the lessons in Jewish tradition then, as a community, life will be good and pleasant and so on. It's a simple case of causality.

The wiser ones who understand more of 'God's ways' will be all the more able to understand how best to accomplish their goals and their life will likewise be all the more better for it.

No guarantees though.

Dvar Megillat Esther

2007-03-02T00:16:00.000-05:00

As of late I've been reflecting a bit on the fortunes of Jewish history and how the story of Purim is meant to be a commentary. My common understanding was that in Jewish history, as is well known, the Jews get the short end of the stick once or twice and that therefore Purim was meant as a statement saying that a) we Jews are survivors and no matter what our enemies try to throw at us, we'll still come through and b) that, as a sort of ironic joke, sometimes even when great calamity seems imminent and another round of kinot are going to find inspiration, things can still work out in our favor.

It then struck me, as I was reviewing Megillat Esther, that Mordechai makes an interesting statement as he's convincing Esther to use her prominent royal position to help the Jews. And he says, "Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish."

What's fascinating about this is that Mordechai seems so sure that the Jews will be saved even though he himself was the product of an Exile which was one of the worst calamities in Jewish history. What makes him so certain that the Jews weren't in for another round?

Some may say the answer is because Cyrus had already proclaimed that the Jews could return to their land and rebuild the Temple and thus he'd figure that God's anger was assuaged enough that the Jews didn't deserve another whopping. Could be, could be.

But I prefer to see it more as a statement of hope and determination even in the face of apparent certain death and destruction. If you are working on the assumption that all plans are doomed for failure then you will never act - and you will fail. But if you are acting on the assumption that something can be done successfully and that you have a responsibility to act - then you will act and you may very well succeed.

The correct attitude when one approaches a problem then should be one of self-confidence and duty - that you ought to act and that your actions will lead to success.

Some hamentashen for thought.

Egyptian Conspiracies

2007-02-25T03:35:00.000-05:00

Someone on TFSG brought up the question of whether the ancient Egyptian government could have conspired in such a way to destroy the evidence of a large Hebrew slave population and Exodus, thus explaining the apparent lack of corroborating evidence for the story as it is recorded in the Torah.

This is how I responded:

"While conspiracy theories are fun, if they have nothing behind them but speculation then there's no reason to give them credence unless you're already convinced otherwise.

If the Torah's account is taken as literal, it would, first of all, conflict with the estimated population figures that Egyptologists give for the New Kingdom which is 3-4 million - total. If the Hebrews then made up ~3 million of that number then the entire social situation would have been wacky and Egyptian history - as it is currently understood - would be mostly nonsense from that period.

Furthermore, after a series of events which lead to the death of a good portion of the Egyptian population - at least one firstborn from every household - not to mention the rest of the plagues - and the exodus of 75% of the population as it existed before Moses came back - there would have been a tiny fraction of the pauperized population still living in Egypt. That massive depopulation would have required massive societal restructuring (as virtually the entire working/servant class had escaped) as well as a huge shrinking in economic output and military prowess. Egypt would have been a shadow of its once powerful self.

None of this occurs in any historical record, nor is there any archeological evidence even remotely suggesting it.

I cannot conceive of a realistic method by which the leaders of Egypt could simultaneously destroy the evidence of millions of people living over hundreds of years, leave no record (historical or archeological) of a depopulation and subsequent societal restructuring - all the while staving off foreign interest in conquering their land with a much reduced military might.

The whole idea is simply absurd.

Mix all of that in with the up front claims of miracles and other supernatural wonders and it becomes obvious that we are not dealing with a realistic portrayal of historical events.

Now, that said, I do believe that _something_ happened and that the story is predicated on real events. The exact nature of those events I am not sure about but I suspect they hold a similar relationship to the Torah's record as the Trojan War has with the Iliad.

As I said earlier, myths were common in every civilization. Why should we presume that Israel was an exception?

Of Halachah and the Unknowable

2007-02-19T23:06:00.000-05:00

Ben Avuyah has just written another very well written post, this time primarily about the unknowability of God or His intentions and therefore the vacuum of knowledge on which Halacha is traditionally founded and the lack of guidance offered to Halachic decision makers.

As he writes, in excerpt:

"The difficulty is that halachah is not a self contained legal system. It is an extension of God’s mind, and in that sense it is an outgrowth of theology itself: A murky tar pit with no bottom or sides upon which we insist we have built or rigorously argued a coherent code of law.

Yet the fact remains that upon such an unsteady foundation the only blueprint for construction is doubt.

I highlight but one example above…the idea that a creator being may deliver a code of law to test if its subject can follow it, to test if and when its subjects righteously rebel against it, or any number of reasons in between. Without knowing motivation or plan, there is not much more to say.

With the axiom in hand, the we are not privy to God’s thoughts, it appears equally likely that he would choose to test our ability to follow what he has clearly spelled out, as he would to test our ability to rebel, and “tell truth to power” when we “feel” our rules are not guided by moral dictates acceptable to our human sensibilities. Indeed, I weigh the second option over the first. What can God know about you character other than a willingness to follow rules, in the first scenario; it is the second case that is necessary to evaluate character."

In response I wrote this:

Very interesting post. The point is, though, something we can come right to at the start. We don't really know anything about God (meaning ultimate truth, existence, what have you) and therefore we have no means of understanding intent - or even if there is 'intent' as we understand the term.

So in what sense is Halacha the will of God? Standard Orthodoxy is simply that Israel made a deal with God. We follow His rulebook and He gives us Eretz Yisrael, the good life and protection from our enemies (and later on eternal life). But that is as simplistic as it is uninspiring for today's age.

I think an important aspect of religion is exactly the kind of internal conflict resolution you wrote about. Like the famous illustration by Kierkegaard, should Abraham follow the command he thinks is from God and slaughter Isaac or should he "tell truth to power," as you said, and refuse? What indeed is the real test here? Obedience or moral rectitude?

As I see it, Abraham had earlier stood up to God on moral grounds when he actually reproached God of the wrongness of killing the good with the bad at the cities of Sodom and Gemorrah. Yet God there assured Abraham that there really were no righteous men there and therefore the act - and by extension God Himself - was moral.

The assurance then is that God is good and the laws He gives are good laws. Personally, I believe a more correct way of phrasing it is that the laws were made by men with moral intent. They did err in some aspects, but the basic thrust is clear, even if rudimentary.

I do believe you are right on the money where you state that Modern Orthodoxy is backwards in its mechanism of defending Halachic practice through very specific dogmatic theological principles. A better way is to treat Halacha, not as commands by God later on further defined by rabbis, but as a system laid down from antiquity by farsighted men with the intent of promoting, as David opined, an ideal society as understood between men and as the individual while being cognizant of a profound reality.

The intent of Halachic Judaism then is simply to encourage individual progress, societal morality, respect for our heritage and consciousness of the divine. As a human construct, the intent is of human origin and hence comprehensible.

I believe it obvious that we are currently in a transitional age (and have been for some time). What the form Halacha will take in future times is difficult to predict, but I do believe, as David does, that we ought to stick with it through the "tough" times so that our posterity are there for the good times.