העורך Editor

With his article against the “French Law” (we reprinted).

On the one hand, term limits are wrong-headed (they may have good effects; I speak of the idea behind them), because they are a step toward democratic government and away from monarchical government. And Feiglin seems shallowly correct; liberty lies in turf wars between government departments.

But politicians should certainly not be permitted to break laws. This is certainly true for real laws, but is also true for fiat laws, since this presents some minimal disincentive upon the crats imposing these upon us, their victims.

And the penalties, too, should be stricter (to some degree), in both cases. This also helps hamstring the pols (almost everything political is cruelly wrong, and the rest is apparent only in retrospect).

And the Israeli Supreme Court is not a real threat, except to non-politicians, as Moshe Feiglin himself explains, so this is the wrong way to go about vitiating that institution.

Thank you!

Curtis Yavin (in the comments):

The entire intellectual system of the West was corrupted by its 20th-century connection to government. Public opinion reflects press opinion, press opinion reflects academic politics, and academic politics are driven by power-struggles in which the attraction of the state is clear.

The victory of Keynesian over Misesian economics, for example, is a classic case of this. Theories of economics which led to jobs advising the state were adaptive. Theories which didn’t weren’t.

Borrowing evolutionary biological terms for anything but evolutionary biology spooks me…

Get to the point!

OK.

Lies are “adaptive” short term, not long term. Truth works… eventually. I footnote myself here as proof (that post didn’t get enough eyes, anyway!).

An expression leaps to mind: בשעת המכניסין פזר בשעת המפזרים כנס.

Check out the list of Top 32 Rabbis and Founders Wearing Tekhelet/Techeiles, from My Western Wall.

Including, but not limited to, Rabbi Meir Mazuz, Rabbi Weinreb, Rabbi Moshe David Tendler, Rabbi Tzuriel, Rabbi Toviah (Tuviah?) Singer, etc.

Here are some more.

שבת סוף י’ ב’ על פרשת וירא:

אמר רבא בר מחסיא אמר רב חמא בר גוריא אמר רב, לעולם יחזר אדם וישב בעיר שישיבתה קרובה, שמתוך שישיבתה קרובה עונותיה מועטין, שנאמר הנה נא העיר הזאת קרובה לנוס שמה והיא מצער כו’ אלא מתוך שישיבתה קרובה עונותיה מוצערין. (אגב, דוגמא להוראת חז”ל מפורסמת פחות.)

והקשה חכ”א ע”ז מיונה ד’ י’, ויאמר ד’ אתה חסת על הקיקיון אשר לא עמלת בו ולא גדלתו שבן לילה היה ובן לילה אבד. ואני לא אחוס על נינוה העיר הגדולה אשר יש בה הרבה משתים עשרה רבו אדם אשר לא ידע בין ימינו לשמאלו ובהמה רבה. ולא קשה מידי, דהקב”ה אינו וותרן להאריך אפו לעולם, אבל לא אחפץ במות המת והשיבו וחיו.

In Mishpacha Magazine (after Rabbi Mendel Weinbach’s death) Rabbi Notta  Schiller said the name “Ohr Same’ach” was chosen for the Yeshiva (among four reasons) because they believed that, to have an effect, they needed innovation, not change, and they saw that principle personified in Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, author of “Ohr Same’ach.

Rabbi Meir Simcha, unlike other rabbis, didn’t oppose the government’s decree rabbis must study Russian, in spite of this being contrary to custom. He felt it was, in fact, a Kiddush Hashem and/or current need.