Antidisestablishmentarianism On Hyehudi.org

One of our more careful readers struggled to reconcile an article seemingly attacking establishments as suchsuch as this one, with many others which endorse them.

This is the quote he mentioned:

To conclude: Yeshivos are a wonderful thing, truly; if you can keep them around honestly. But if holding your Yeshiva afloat requires wrongly putting the group ahead of the individual, the whole enterprise loses its Jewish value.

The same is true for other crooked worldly means, like impure funding, or deceiving your students into misreading (teaching Briskian baloney instead of honesty and logic).

To repeat the title once again: Judaism is anti-establishmentarian. (Even disestablishmentarian where necessary.)

He added on a personal note (paraphrased):

I myself have anti/dis-Establishment inclinations, though am a big fan of Kehillos (indeed, that is what most people’s לבם חפץ), and am trying to figure out if there is a way to reconcile the two leanings honestly.

 

Answer:

 

“Inclinations” need to be reconciled by consistently obeying halacha, as Chazal say on “בכל לבבך”.

 

As for how establishments can exist if they put the individual first (when they must), I say: “בהדי כבשי דרחמנא למה לך”. Let Hashem work it out. (This applies to a great many areas.)

Let’s Get Rid of Our Feminist Readers!

Is there any misogyny in Mishlei and its commentators?

Mishlei 23:22:

שמע לאביך זה ילדך ואל תבוז כי זקנה אמך

Rabbenu Yonah idem  – Women are not as intellectual as men:

אל תבוז אמך, אע”פ שאין החכמה מצויה בנשים. כי זקנה. ויש לה חכמת הנסיונות. על כן לא תבוז לה כי תעיד לך על אשר שמעו אזניה וראו עיניה. ויש לפרש, “אל תבוז כי זקנה אמך”. אל תבוז לדבריה אע”פ שזקנה והיא למשא על אחרים מפני שצריכה לזולתה ואין עזרתה בה.

(A certain rabbi once said in a lecture to men to never correct their wives. One of his homiletic proofs was stressing the word “לחכם” in the verse: הוכח לחכם ויאהבך)

Metzudos idem – Women tend to prattle senselessly:

כי זקנה, אף אם זקנה אמך לא תבוז אמריה לומר לא בסבי טעמא אף כי דרך נשים לה להרבות אמרים מבלי השכל.

And the simple meaning of Mishlei 11:22 is that it refers to an uncomplimentary female archetype, as pointed out already.

Is any of this misogyny? Not by my own definition. If racism consists of unjustified pride on the part of those doing the labeling, misogyny must be defined only as wrongly looking down upon the other sex. It’s not that different groups lack certain positives, but that we are all handicapped in different ways.

P.S., I forgot to mention “Eishes Chayil”: Competent women are rare.

על המקדש ועל המדינה

“אבל שונה היא תולדות ישראל מתולדות עמים רבים, גם בהיות עם ישראל יושב על אדמתו והנהיג ממשלה מדינית, גם אז יסוד קיומו היה רק דתו ותורתו, שבשעה שהיו ישראל מתהלכים בתמים את ד׳ ותורתו, עשו חיל והצליחו, ובסורם מדרך ד׳, אז בכל תקפם וגבורתם ירדו פלאים, – וכמו שמעתיק הח׳ ״הנ״ס״ ״בהצפירה״ גליון 49 שנת תרמ״ד דברי הח׳ העסקן הכללי גבריאל ריססער לאמר: ״היהודים סובלים חמת המציק בדומיה, כמו לא ירגישו, אך כאשר תגע יד צורר בקדשי מחמדיהם, אז ירגזו ממנוחתם ויתגברו כאריות, נקל להם אבדן חייהם ושפלות מצבם וירידתם במדרגת המעמד המדיני, אך חלול הורתם והגרשם מגן עדן הדת, בל יוכלו שאת במנוחה מבלי התעורר עד מאד, ובא האות על זה, כי הגדול והגבור בהאסונות אשר מצא אותם, אבדן חופשיותם וירידתם ממדרגת לאום מדיני בתגרת יד גייסות רומא, מכונה בפיהם על שם ״חורבן בית המקדש״, אותו ישימו להם לפרק ולציון בדברי ימיהם, ולפי החורבן הם מונים. המפלה המדינית, לא היתה למלה בפיהם, ולא הציבו לה יד בסגנון לשונם. ורק חורבן בית המקדש נשאר בזכרונם מכל המלחמה הנוראה שבה היתה תבוסתם שלמה״.

* זכרון יעקב – ר’ יעקב הלוי ליפשיץ ז”ל (קאוונא־סלאבאדקא, תרפ”ד), חלק א’ פרק א’

דפח”ח.

Ron Paul on the Looming American Entitlements Crisis

Spending Our Way to a Fiscal Crisis

Another ominous sign is that this year both Social Security and Medicare will have to draw down on their reserve funds to be able to pay benefits. The Social Security and Medicare trust funds will both soon be bankrupt, putting additional strains on the federal budget and American taxpayers.

The excessive debt caused by excessive spending will inevitably cause a major economic crisis. Yet, with a few notable exceptions, there is little to no desire in Washington to cut spending. Instead, both parties are committed to increasing spending on warfare and welfare while ignoring the looming entitlements crisis.

Examples of fiscal irresponsibility on Capitol Hill are easy to find. For instance, even though the Untied Stares is currently spending more on its military than the combined budgets of the next seven highest spending countries, Congress recently increased military spending by 82 billion dollars. This brings the total the US spends on a futile effort to police and democratize the world to 716 billion dollars. The US House has also recently passed a farm bill that increases spending by more than 3 billion dollars over the next five years. This bill does not take a step toward ending subsidies to wealthy farmers and even continues providing farm subsidies to non-famers! Pressure on Congress to increase spending on farm subsidies is likely to increase as famers becomes collateral damage in President Trump’s trade war.

Many progressives are attacking the House farm bill because it makes some reforms to the “SNAP” (food stamp) program, even though the House version of bill increases the budget for food stamps by at least 1.7 billion dollars over the next five years!

When the economic crisis hits, there will be no choice but to cut spending and raise taxes. Of course, Congress is unlikely to raise taxes or cut benefits. Instead, it will rely on the Federal Reserve to do the dirty work via the inflation tax. The inflation tax is the worst type of tax because it is both hidden and regressive.

One of the worst features, if not the worst, of the tax reform plan is increasing the inflation tax by authorizing the use of “chained CPI.” Chained CPI hides inflation’s effects by claiming that rising prices do not harm Americans as long as they can still afford low-cost substitute goods to replace products they can no longer afford due to the Federal Reserve’s devaluation of the currency — as if people forced to buy hamburger instead of steak are not negatively impacted by inflation.

Increasing federal debt will also put pressure on the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates low to prevent federal interest payments on the debt from skyrocketing.  Eventually, the Fed’s monetization of the debt will lead to hyperinflation and a rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. The question is when, not whether, the welfare-warfare state and the fiat currency system will end. Hopefully, those who know the truth will succeed in growing the liberty movement so we can convince Congress to gradually unwind the welfare-warfare state, restore a true free market in money, and stop trying to run the world, run the economy, and run our lives.

From Lewrockwell.com, here.