Don’t Be a Moocher
To Ask or Not To Ask
by the Chazon Ish zt’l
The Chazon Ish, Rabbi Avraham Yeshaya Karelitz (1878-1953), one of the greatest Torah luminaries of recent times, lived in Israel from 1933 until his passing. His views, actions, halachic rulings and writings continue to have a major influence on the fabric of Torah life everywhere.
from “Kovetz Igerot 3:134”
“If your will is to ask something from your fellow (re’echa),
Weight it with scales – if you will attain your request,
And don’t say ‘what will leave me if I ask and he will refuse my request?’
Know, that you have lost a great deal with your action,
Because you are not guaranteed for yourself of not having aroused anger in your heart – on your fellow’s refusal.
Also your fellow’s heart becomes sneaky (mitganev), in thinking that your heart is on (i.e. upset with) him.
And you, between brothers you divided, and you’ve increased sinas chinam (baseless hatred, the cause of the temple’s destruction).
And he whose words are light (i.e. talks alot without thinking) and he is used to making requests – he hates and is hated.”
From Daf Yomi Review, here.
Want To Understand Gemara? Slow Down!
Here are some excerpts from Daf Yomi Review:
Rav Wasserman taught that the Talmud is designed to be difficult. It’s purposely crafted to be difficult. He said every sugya (discussion) is like a tight knot in a ball of string. When you disentangle that ball of string, you have to go slow. If you’re impatient, you make the knot much worse. You have to pick out each piece, slowly and unravel it and by the time, you’ve decoded the sugya it’s one beautiful straight piece of string. Then you see that it was crafted into the smallest and most compressed and most beautiful space possible (i.e. could not possibly be written with fewer or better words. this applies also to every Rashi, Tosfos, and the like). It takes patience, it takes technique.
When you go through a complex piece of gemora, and you’re a little bit vague on point 1, the rest is an amplification of vagueness, and by the time you get to the end, you don’t know what’s going on. Gemora has a nasty trick, a nasty bite. A bite, of allowing you to get to the end and thinking, more or less you sort of understood, but something is a little bit back. And when you walk out and try to tell your friend about it you realize you didn’t understand anything from the beginning. that’s the way it works. Gemora is built in such a way that unless you have it all, you have nothing.
Against Libertarian Anti-Zionism
At Long Last, A Defense of Israel Against Rothbard
Back in 1967, in response to the outbreak of the Six Day War, Dr. Murray Rothbard penned an article entitled “War Guilt in the Middle East“. In the article, Rothbard denies Israel’s right to exist and accuses it of starting an unjust war. We, obviously, disagree.
Now, 50 years later, we his students have written a rebuttal, just published in The Indonesian Journal of International & Comparative Law. It is coauthored by Alan Futerman, Dr. Walter Block, and me. I wrote section 8 and much of the conclusion. Walter wrote section 7. Alan wrote the rest, and we all collectively edited.
From the Jewish Libertarian, here.
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