העורך Editor

First-principles thinking by Dr. Elliot Resnick on Arutz Sheva here.

An excerpt:

What’s the difference between promoting self-esteem and promoting humility if a caveat needs to be added either way?

The difference is that humility is a middah that’s extolled in virtually every single Jewish ethical work ever written whereas self-esteem appears as a virtue in almost no Jewish ethical work at all.

…

Frum self-esteem proponents – desperate for legitimacy – comb through all of Torah literature and manage to come up with a smattering of sources to support their position. For example, the Gemara says that a person should think, “For me alone the world was created.” Rav Tzadok HaKohen writes that a person should believe in himself. The Alter of Slabodka would often stress that man is great.

Yet, all these statements are clearly only prologues to unspoken conclusions.

“For me alone the world was created” – and therefore I have to fulfill my destiny.

Man is great – and therefore I have a responsibility to develop myself and serve Hashem to the best of my ability. An implicit “therefore” always follows.

The Torah doesn’t sanction feeling good about oneself as an independent value (which is what the self-esteem movement promotes). It may believe in feeling good about one’s potential or one’s pure soul so that one lives up to that potential and one does credit to that soul. But this attitude is a means to an end, not an end unto itself.

Read the rest here…

From an interview in the paywalled “Economist” (sent by a reader, not checked inside):

Where you give way to freedom, society flourishes. Not only economically, but it flourishes also in social aspects. There is a phrase by [Frédéric] Bastiat that is wonderful, which says: “Where commerce enters, bullets do not enter.”

And there is another wonderful phrase that is by Bertrand de Jouvenel who says: “Where there is a market, manners are sweet.”

Notes: I don’t get the impression Mr. Milei understands the full implications of the freedom philosophy for foreign policy. He’s no Ron Paul, to put it lightly. Why does he support school vouchers? And I don’t see him seeking advice (dogs aside).

(I’ll admit, I’m quoting him because it’s far easier than carefully checking Bastiat and Bertrand de Jouvenel in the original!)

By the way, here is a Gemara that might be hinting at the same idea, Berachos 57a:

אמר רבי חייא בר אבא הרואה חטים בחלום ראה שלום שנאמר השם גבולך שלום חלב חטים ישביעך.

And see this title.

Quoting from an article by Chevy Weiss on Tzofiya:

Schenirer’s brother wrote a note to the Belzer Rebbe¹¹ requesting a blessing for her plan to “educate Jewish daughters in the Jewish way.” With his response of “be blessed and successful”, she launched a school; however, it is speculated that the Rebbe did not understand the vagueness of the note as he prohibited his followers from enrolling¹². She worked hard and slowly gained support around Europe, although it took several years of high assimilation rates until other Orthodox Rabbinic leaders endorsed her schools, including Rav Chaim Ozer Grodzinski (1928), the Gerrer Rebbe, Rabbi Avraham Meir Alter of Gur (1929), the Chafetz Chaim, Rav Yisrael Meir HaKohain (1933), and the Lubavitcher Rebbe (1934)¹³.

 

Footnotes:

¹¹ Rav Issacher Dov of Belz, 1854–1927.

¹² Weissman & Seidman, 2021.

¹³ Ginsparg-Klein, Leslie. “Sarah Schenirer and Innovative Change: The Myths and Facts – the Lehrhaus.” 12 Nov. 2019.

End of excerpt.

By the way, what is Tzofiya?

From the About page:

As opposed to other existing websites who seek to offer women a different perspective, Tzofia is faithful to Halakha, Orthodox Judaism and Daat Torah. It is headed by Dayan Shlomo Cohen, graduate of The Institute of Monetary Law and Yeshivat Hanegev, and an esteemed teacher at Neve Yerushalayim, a well-known Jerusalem-based seminary for women.

You know the homiletic lesson mentioned by Iggeres Teiman to bear Yishmael’s insults in silence: ומשמע ודומה ומשא (Hear it, Be still, Bear it)?

Well, in Se’ir’s family tree, we read (Bereishis 36:27):

אלה בני אצר: בלהן וזעון ועקן.

• Don’t pray to win the lottery (אוצר)!
• “If it sounds too good to be true…”
• And so on.

(I don’t know if I actually came up with this (Sefardic blood?), or simply forgot my source.)

P.S., Ohr Hachaim there quotes a similar Medrash:

אלה בני אצר וגו’. ירמוז הכתוב על דרך אומרם ז”ל (ילקוט משלי ב’) אמרה תורה מפני מה בני עניים אמר לה הקדוש ברוך הוא להנחיל אוהבי יש ואוצרותיהם אמלא פירוש כי באמצעות יסוריהן בעולם הזה ירבה אוצרם בעולם הבא, והוא אומרו אלה בני אצר פי’ אותם שחפצים לאצור אוצר בטוב בנצחי צריכין בעולם הזה לסבול יסורין. בלהן וגו’, ומודיע הכתוב כי היסורין הם עושים אוצרות מלאים כל טוב למעלה באמצעותם. וכיסורי ר’ אלעזר ב”ר שמעון בר יוחאי (בבא מציעא דף פד:) שהיה קורא אותם בואו אחי וגו’, ומעתה מי האיש החפץ חיים העליונים ולאצור אוצרות הטוב ימאוס בעולם הזה ובתענוגיו ויקבל עליו בלהן וזעון ועקן תרגום צרה עקא לטוב לו כל הימים ולמלאות אוצרותיו.

The excellent ending of a Huffington Post article on the wicked man:

The United States, after all, overthrew numerous democratically elected governments, waged secret bombing campaigns, and committed and permitted human rights abuses well before Kissinger came to power. And the U.S. government has carried out decades of endless war that have resulted in significant civilian death tolls, the expanded use of torture, indefinite detention, illegal rendition and extrajudicial murder since Kissinger left government.

Much like Kissinger, the architects of those disasters faced few, if any, meaningful repercussions. A country that so often predicates its concern for human rights on the specific humans in question, and in which elite accountability for even the most blatant crimes and abuses is so rare, seems to have made up its mind about morality’s place in politics and public policy without much need for Kissinger’s help. He was just happier than most to provide it.

Perhaps, then, Kissinger’s life was most remarkable for how brightly it illuminated a simple and ugly truth about the nation he served.