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יום העיון “לשון ותורה בחנוכה” – תשפ”ד

תוכנית יום העיון “לשון ותורה בחנוכה” – תשפ”ד

יום חמישי, ב’ בטבת, נר 7 של חנוכה:

1100הסופר הרב יוסף אליהו

יו”ר ארגון ‘עין טובה’  

“דבש תחת לשונך” – חידושי לשון בתנ”ך ובמשנה
1120ד”ר משה קהן

 

שירי יין ושמחה בתור הזהב
1140אליהוא שנון

חבר קבוץ סעד, גולה בים המלח

משמעות סדר המילים במקרא

בעברית החדשה אומצו שינויים רבים בסדר המילים לעומת העברית המקראית. לא תמיד אנחנו מבינים פסוקים בגלל הזרוּת. נביא ששה מיני שינוי ודוגמות, עם פיענוח פסוקים אחדים.

1200אוריאל פרנקשלום עם נאצים?!

מיהו נאצי? ומהו שלום? נדבר על שני שינויים לשוניים מבורכים בעקבות “מלחמת שמחת תורה”: גאולתה של המילה “שלום”, והחזרת ה”עטרה” (המפוקפקת) של התואר “נאצי” ליושנה.

1220משה אוסיאסלאם – זה לא סלאם – לעולם עם סקירה על ארגוני הטרור

מאתר מענה לשון, כאן.

There Is a Universal ‘Language of Thought’ – Like the Rishonim Say in Berachos

You Don’t Think In Any Language

POSTED ON  BY DAVID J. LOBINA

by David J. Lobina

(This is Part 2 of a brand new series of post, this time about the relationship between language and thought; Part 1 is here)

A provocative title, perhaps, and perhaps also counterintuitive. One thinks in the language one speaks, everybody knows that. Why would anyone ask bilingual speakers which language they think in (or dream in) otherwise?

I suspect that what people usually have in mind when they ask such questions is related to the phenomenon of inner speech, the experience of internally speaking to ourselves, which may well be ubiquitous in adults (but probably not in children), though not entirely universal. I certainly think that inner speech plays a role in thinking, but not as central a role as most people seem to think (I will come back to this on a later post, probably in Part 4 of this series, where I will also discuss how writers of fiction use the narrative technique of “interior monologue” to outline some of the mental processes of a given character (thinking, feeling, etc.) – but mostly to argue that authors generally go about it the wrong way!).

The point I want to make in this post is that no-one thinks in any natural language; not in English, or Italian, or whatever, but in a language of thought, an abstract, unconscious and moreover inaccessible, conceptual representational system of the mind. Or at least I intend to provide some of the evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, that suggests that this is indeed the state of affairs.

The idea of a language of thought is in fact a rather old one. It effectively refers to the old doctrine that we think in a mental language that is not a spoken language. Traceable back to Aristotle, Boethius and William of Ockham (among others), the doctrine is to a large extent premised on the general observation that speakers of different languages can refer to the very same “things”, though they may employ different words to talk about them. As the French philosopher Claude Panaccio has aptly put it in a recent historical overview of the mental language, the French can talk about un homme whereas the English would say a man and the ancient Romans homo, but they all would have had the same “idea” in mind – the same concept, as cognitive scientists call such things, and as I myself mentioned last time around. Crucially, the same logic applies to the sentences in which the mentioned words can appear: homo currit, un homme court and a man is running simply describe the same event – the same thought – in different languages.

This, at the very least, suggests a general intertranslatability among different languages, what the philosopher Jerry Katz once called the “effability principle” – namely, the intertranslatibility of whatever thought one might be able entertain in one language into another language (in rough outline, of course, not in precise, linguistic detail, and certainly not in terms of a one-to-one correspondence between words or phrases).

Continue reading…

From 3 Quarks Daily, here.

Kissinger, Enemy of the Jews

The death of Henry Kissinger – a Zionist post mortem

After Kissinger left office, the dynamics of Arab-Israeli diplomacy changed, in ways that Kissinger – for all his reputed brilliance – never expected.

By  Moshe Phillips
 Published on  12-03-2023 23:27

The JTA news service in their article on the death of Henry Kissinger stated “Regarded as a brilliant diplomatic strategist, Kissinger was one of the most influential Jewish figures of the 20th century…”

Influential? Yes. Pro-Israel? No. Despite the many pundits who now wish to recast Kissinger as a proud Jew who proudly supported Israel the facts are that the exact opposite is true.

Kissinger brokered agreements based on the idea that Israel should give up tangible assets in exchange for something less than actual peace. Thus in 1975 he pressured Israel into surrendering the Mitla and Giddi passes in the Sinai and the Abu Rodeis oil fields there in exchange for a brief “non-belligerency” pledge from Egypt.

After Kissinger left office, the dynamics of Arab-Israeli diplomacy changed, in ways that Kissinger – for all his reputed brilliance – never expected. Egypt’s Sadat realized the only way to get back the entire Sinai was to sign a peace treaty with Israel, and so he did. Yasser Arafat realized the only way to get an almost-sovereign territory and a de-facto army was to sign a peace agreement with Israel, so he did. Jordan, and then more recently several Gulf kingdoms, decided it was more advantageous to them to sign peace treaties with Israel, so they did.

But two essential problems haunt both the Kissinger-brokered agreements and the ones that came later. The first is that a treaty signed with a dictator can be tossed out at any moment, for any reason. That happened during the brief rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It also happened when Israel agreed to give Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, and then shortly afterward Hamas took over. And now after October 7 we can see the results of a Hamas-controlled Gaza.

But the second, and also a very serious problem, is that not a single of the aforementioned Arab regimes have undertaken genuine peace education. They have not taught their citizens to embrace peace and coexistence with Israel. They have likewise made no effort to teach their children in this regard. So anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist hatred still simmers just below the surface among the Arab masses in all of those countries, ready to explode. Thus the extraordinary concessions Israel made for each of those treaties, in the end, secured for the Jewish State what are little more than ceasefire agreements.

As far as Kissinger himself it is actually even more enlightening to go back to the day before Israel was attacked in 1973 – the day Kissinger prevented Israel from launching a preemptive strike.

We know what happened on the eve of the war and the days to follow from three reliable sources: Walter Isaacson’s well known Kissinger: A Biography; long-time Haaretz chief diplomatic correspondent Matti Golan’s The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger; and from former Obama administration Middle East envoy David Makovsky.

On Yom Kippur morning, hours before the 1973 Arab invasion, Golda Meir was informed by her military intelligence officials that Egypt and Syria were massing their troops along Israel’s borders and would attack later that day. The Israelis immediately contacted Kissinger.

Golan describes what happened next: “Till the very outbreak of the fighting, Kissinger remained more concerned with the possibility of an Israeli preemptive strike than an Egyptian-Syrian attack.” Kissinger instructed the US ambassador in Israel to personally deliver to Meir “a presidential entreaty” – that is, a warning, in the name of President Nixon “not to start a war.”

Abba Eban, who was the Israeli foreign minister then, confirmed in his own autobiography that IDF chief of staff David Elazar proposed a preemptive strike, but Meir and defense minister Moshe Dayan rejected it on the grounds that “the United States would regard this as provocative.”

As soon as the Arab nations attacked, the Israelis requested an U.S. airlift of military supplies. Kissinger stalled them – for an entire brutal week. Kissinger’s strategy was to orchestrate “a limited Egyptian victory,” Makovsky wrote in The Jerusalem Post in 1993. The secretary of state feared an Israeli victory “would cause Israel to strengthen its resolve not to make any territorial concessions in Sinai.”

“Kissinger opposed giving [Israel] major support that could make its victory too one-sided,” Isaacson confirms. Kissinger told defense secretary James Schlesinger, “The best result would be if Israel came out a little ahead but got bloodied in the process.”

A “little bloodied”? Try 2,656 dead Israeli soldiers.

Continue reading…

From Israel Hayom, here.

Yoel Berman’s Living in the Land’s USP: No ‘Aliyah Bullying’!

Book Review: Living in the Land – A Book to Both Grace Your Coffee Table and Your Mind, Heart, and Soul

29/11/2023

A valuable new book has just made its way into the frum world:
Living in the Land, Mosaica Press 2023 by Yoel Berman:

Fifty frum olim describe the joys, challenges, and opportunities of making the move to Eretz Yisrael, as well as the resources and strategies that made for success.

And it comes with a strikingly beautiful cover by the gifted frum artist Yehoshua Wiseman.

I think we have really been needing a book like this and it’s great that Yoel Berman fulfilled this need.

Why Focus on Charedi Aliyah?

We need a book that focuses solely on charedi aliyah and the settlement of Eretz Yisrael.

And charedim from outside of Eretz Yisrael, despite not being “Zionist,” comprise a huge percentage of aliyah.

​You run into them everywhere in Eretz Yisrael.

Charedim really need guidance devoted to their specific needs — needs which vary from group to group and family to family and individual to individual.

With most aliyah organizations having been secular or traditional, charedi needs & interests traditionally got shoved to the side — though that never stopped charedi aliyah.

​In fact, the charedi aliyah continues to increase.

Despite lots of propaganda to the contrary, charedim (though they weren’t called that then) built the foundation for Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisrael.

With humbling self-sacrifice, they settled the Land, built up & expanded Jewish settlement — even sacrificing their lives for this goal.

And Charedim continue to contribute to Jewish growth in every way.

I remember when Ramat Eshkol was a depressingly secular Israeli neighborhood. Within 20 years, it transformed into a vibrant charedi community, encompassing a thriving English-speaking community.

The face of Yerushalayim also changed with the growth of Torah-observant communities in all sectors.

I remember Yerushalayim over 30 years ago and feel awe at how it transformed, with frum people vastly outnumbering the secular, and secular ads and stores shrinking while you can see things like a huge sign advertising for “Savta Sara’s Cholent!”

Continue reading…

From Myrtle Rising, here.

How To Deal With the ‘Lavans’ of the World

Lessons on Dealing with a Hypocrite

Nov 23, 23

by R. Gidon Rothstein

Parshat VaYetzei

The comment from HaKetav VeHaKabbalah I chose for this week highlights how hard it can be to spot hypocrisy, at least in Scripture.

Lavan’s Skillful Self-Defense

In chapter 31 of Bereshit, Lavan berates Ya’akov for fleeing, taking Leah and Rachel as if captives of war, accuses Ya’akov of stealing Lavan’s idols, and checks the whole camp. When he fails to find them, Ya’akov complains about his father in law’s suspicions, this after twenty years of faithful service. Lavan’s reply, verses 43-44, rubs R. Mecklenburg very much the wrong way.

Lavan says the whole family is really his, he was looking out for his daughters, and suggests a pact. A common ploy by evildoers, says HaKetav VeHaKabbalah, who distract from their own wrongs by accusing the righteous [sadly, something Israel is currently experiencing, from Hamas and its allies, all over the world], then portray themselves as peacemakers.

They sweep their misdeeds under the rug, assign all blame to the often innocent other, then (seemingly magnanimously) suggest wiping away the past, not bringing it up any more, as long as the other commits not to do wrong in the future. In this case, Lavan adds that Ya’akov has to promise not to mistreat his wives, Lavan’s daughters (as if that was an issue).

How To Know When Evil Has Changed

Whether or not we should read these verses that way, it is, sadly, a very perceptive comment about how some people or groups act. They muddy the waters of truth by finding some way to accuse the other side, often baselessly, misdirecting attention from their much larger wrongs. [We supporters of Israel call it false equivalence. It comes up elsewhere, where one side justifies its wrongs by pointing at supposedly equivalent wrongs on the other.]

In our case, Lavan has Ramban on his side, showing us just how hard it is to catch a Lavan. R. Mecklenburg himself notes Ramban thought Lavan was sincerely worried about his daughters and their children, and was trying to guarantee their wellbeing. R. Mecklenburg disagrees, is astonished by Ramban’s finding the good in a man whom tradition says tried to do worse to us than Par’oh [in the Pesach Seder; while the particular formulation we use is only first found in the ninth-century Seder R. Amram Gaon, Sifrei to Devarim does have the essential idea of Lavan having been intent on destroying the entire Jewish people].

He plays off Mishlei 12;10, the compassion (or mercy) of an evildoer is actually cruel, highlighting a recurring challenge, not only in Scripture: how do we spot when someone who has been bad until now has turned a corner or is cynically pretending to do so to avoid facing his/her truth?

An Earlier Ploy by Lavan

R. Samson Raphael Hirsch suggested a previous example of Lavan’s attempted misdirection and thinks Ya’akov caught and parried it. After Rachel gives birth to Yosef, 30;25, Ya’akov asks Lavan’s permission to leave, he having completed his side of the bargain, worked for his father in law for fourteen years for two wives. Lavan, verses 27-28, says he knows his household has been blessed by Ya’akov’s presence, then suggests Ya’akov name the reward/salary he wants for all his hard work. The text signals no break between the two, but our Torah reading practice stops in the middle for chamishi, the fifth aliyah of the Shabbat morning reading.

R. Hirsch says it is not coincidental. Lavan wanted to keep Ya’akov, for his cheap hard work, wanted him to stay just for room and board. He uses God’s Name (“I have divined that God has blessed me because of you”), acts as if he himself is (now) God fearing, and is asking Ya’akov to stay to maintain/sustain the fear of God he has brought to the household.

R. Hirsch pauses parenthetically on the word nichashti, I have divined. In his time too, he says, people with no sense of God act as if they do because of their superstitious activities, their ways of trying to predict the future. Another example of where those who in fact try to serve God must be able to recognize when others talk the talk, yet are not at all involved in the walk.

It was really just business, to avoid having to pay Ya’akov what he had earned.

Ya’akov Knows Lavan

Ya’akov doesn’t say anything in the verse, to R. Hirsch a sign he did not take the bait. Reaching for his next best ploy, Lavan asked Ya’akov to name his price, a way of putting him on the spot, daring him to ask what he’s really worth. Ya’akov instead calls out his father in law, says you know well how hard I have worked for you, did not need any nichush, divination; the blessings from God weren’t a function of any righteousness I have, they rewarded my hard work, and I need now to apply that to the good of my family.

A setup that justifies the payoff he then puts forward.

To me, R. Hirsch is spotting a master class by Ya’akov on how to deal with manipulative people: refuse to respond to ridiculous remarks, wait for an opening to address the substance, force the hypocrite to acknowledge basic truths, and then ask/demand what one clearly deserves.

Continue reading…

From Torah Musings, here.