Year: 2018

You should certainly try to become very rich (although not so much it takes you away from your other responsibilities), but note not everyone can become rich. This is is the case by definition: “Rich” is relative. Besides, wealth is attained by better forecasting consumer demand than other speculators, so we can’t all forecast better than everyone else!

Torah, on the other hand, is for everyone. Here there is no market competition for scarce resources.

Sanhedrin 91b:

אמר רב יהודה אמר רב, כל המונע הלכה מפי תלמיד כאילו גוזלו מנחלת אבותיו, שנאמר תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה קהילת יעקב, מורשה היא לכל ישראל מששת ימי בראשית!

Rambam Hilchos Talmud Torah 3:1:

בשלשה כתרים נכתרו ישראל, כתר תורה וכתר כהונה וכתר מלכות. כתר כהונה זכה בו אהרן, שנאמר והיתה לו ולזרעו אחריו ברית כהנת עולם. כתר מלכות זכה בו דוד, שנאמר זרעו לעולם יהיה וכסאו כשמש נגדי. כתר תורה הרי מונח ועומד ומוכן לכל ישראל, שנאמר תורה צוה לנו משה מורשה קהלת יעקב, כל מי שירצה יבא ויטול. שמא תאמר שאותם הכתרים גדולים מכתר תורה…

This is unlike those who say Torah excellence “is not for everyone”, while they encourage most people to spend their life and talents accumulating wealth.

I know a wise Jew living in the US who can contribute to exposing the anti-Jewish nature of politics here on Hyehudi.org. He agrees with me, but he is too fearful to type anything up, because of current mass-surveillance.

He once put his name on a letter to the paper and suffers “random” extra “scrutiny” in airports ever since. מי שנכווה ברותחין מושך ידו בפושרין. Well, don’t use your own name next time! He is not alone, either. Maybe if I summarise my counter-claim, this will prove helpful.

A major criticism of authoritarianism and central planning is the “Pretense of Knowledge”. But this is not just about prices. The accursed NSA’s slogan is “Collect It All”. But this itself handicaps them!

If they put the magnifying glass on someone, he is going to be roasted (אי אמר מלכותא עקרנא טורי עקר טורי ולא הדר ביה). But, unless one is super-effective in the ideological revolution in the here and now (bureaucracies have high time-preference), what are the chances they aim davka at him?! Importantly, you can be the worst toady to authoritarians and still get marked as a false positive!

Even if they wanted to stop something like terrorism, they couldn’t, because the more they know the less they assimilate:

1. Stovepiping and turf wars.
2. Tech problems are legion in government; trust me.
3. Incompatible computer systems among different agencies.
4. The quality of the workers is usually just “good-enough-for-government”.
5. They are choked by their own ever-growing rules.

In one marvelous metaphor: Signal to noise ratio!

And when the victims don’t impute legitimacy to government spying, they don’t assist external sanctions with false-guilt self-governance, so the state lacks enough resources, or, to be more precise, they lack the right kind of resources. NSA spying is useless, so don’t let it stop you. Compare American SIGINT and the Israeli state’s HUMINT against the Jews and Arabs. One works; the other doesn’t.

People are actually spying back on the state some, like James O’Keefe, car-cams, etc.

Bottom line: Pardon me, but if you won’t expose the monsters, this is either unimportant to you, or you lack Bitachon.

Siach Sarfei Kodesh 1:175 (translated by Rabbi Chaim Kramer, Through Fire and Water – The Life of Reb Nosson of Breslov, p. 99):

… In the circumstances, Reb Nosson’s father-in-law, Rabbi Dovid Zvi Orbach, was urging him to take a position as a Rav.

Reb Nosson turned to the Rebbe for advice. The Rebbe told him to accept the position. Reb Nosson told the Rebbe that he was afraid of the awesome responsibility. Rebbe Nachman said to him, “Who then should be a rav if not one who is afraid?!”

Reb Nosson then asked:

Is this the emes – is it the right thing for me?

“Yes!” said the Rebbe.

Reb Nosson then pressed him:

“But is the emeser emes – is it really right for me?

“You want the real truth?” replied the Rebbe. “Then don’t become a rav”.

Reb Nosson later wrote that he was grateful to God that he was saved from taking the position, since it would have hindered his own spiritual growth and the subsequent spreading of Reb Nachman’s teachings.

The end.

Reb Nosson knew to press the question because Reb Nachman had earlier explained this idea of “true” truth. See too Likutei Halachos’ vitally correct explanation of the Medrash on “ותשלך אמת ארצה” (Ribbis 5:16).

If only Jews loved and feared Hashem enough to not be satisfied with appearances or suffice with tradition and legal fiction, Oness and Dochak, we would listen carefully, and read between the lines, and seek to obey Hashem’s True will. And Hashem would listen back.

Reb Nachman of Breslov placed Halacha above all else. As a friend just said to me (a la “Lubavitch is the closest religion to Judaism”): “Breslovers are the closest Litvaks to Chassidus!”

An excerpt from The Torah Revolution:

I am a Shomron resident and after ten years of gun ownership the police called me up, telling me to surround my gun to them, my license has expired. What happened was that up until now the Ministry of Interior sent out a notification, with a related form to pay a fee at the post office, to renew the license of gun ownership in every two or three years. Now, and without notice, they changed this practice and stopped sending out notifications of renewal, effectively disarming thousands of people with this cowardly bureaucratic trick.

See the rest here.