Topic Wiki

I'm going to try to make an index of the questions and answers here. I'm thinking of writing a short summary of the question/topic then writing the reply number, date, author (in case someone deletes a post it should still be findable). And writing locations of relevant replies on that question.

Question 1- Why did Hashem want to create the world? (Reply #1, 8/29/17, Starstruck)

See reply #78 8/31/17 churnbabychurn. #26 8/30/17 chbochur. #53 8/30/17 starstruck. #65 8/30/17 chbochur.

Question 2 - Why does beis din have to give punishments, can't Hashem give it? (#77 8/31/17 starstruck)

See reply #99 9/01/17 zh Cohen. #147 9/06/17 starstruck.

Question 3 - Why isn't there a sefeika d'yoma by Yom Kippur (but by Sukkos there is)? (#88 9/01/17 Dan)

See pages 7,8,9,10

Question 4 - Why is it נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא יותר משנברא if the whole purpose of the world is to be meitiv? ( #112 9/01/17 chbochur)

See #146 9/05/17 aygart and quoted conversations.


Author Topic: Jewish Philosophy  (Read 25457 times)

Offline churnbabychurn

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #140 on: September 02, 2017, 10:12:36 PM »
Before they started manipulating the calendar.
They manipulated the calendar since they had moadim to observe with yetzias mitzrayim.

Interesting thing I saw recently btw, that there are sources that say that in the midbar, due to the cloud cover from the annany hakavod, they used the mathematical calculations to be mekadesh and not reiya.

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #141 on: September 02, 2017, 10:16:50 PM »
Before they started manipulating the calendar.
When was that?
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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #142 on: September 02, 2017, 10:28:48 PM »
Also Sanhedrin 13a and Rashi there
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Offline zh cohen

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #143 on: September 03, 2017, 07:20:40 AM »
Btw, I happen to be looking for a Jewish observer article about the fight over moled zokein between the Rasag and EY...

Any leads?
Eta looks like they are all here.. now to find it http://agudathisrael.org/?s=Jewish+observer

There also was an article about it in the Mishpacha magazines "Kulmos" supplement a long time ago.

Offline chbochur

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #144 on: September 05, 2017, 05:24:22 PM »
להטיב Mean to do good or to make better. נוח means it is easier/comfortable/pleasant. It is definitely easier for a person to not have been created but once he was יפשפש במעשיו which is better for him. Doing so will cause Hashem to be מטיב to him.
Your post is a little mixed up with the Hebrew so I'm not sure I'm understanding it correctly, but from what I understand your saying that it would have been easier not to be born but now that he was born he should 'yifashfeish bimaasov and hashem will be good to him, wouldn't it be better not being born and needing to yifashfesh bimaasov to get hashem to be good to you? Also doesn't explain what the good hashem is doing and why/if it is better then not being born

Offline chbochur

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #145 on: September 05, 2017, 05:27:06 PM »


How many levels of "why" do you know of?

Let's start off with the question of why did Hashem make this world? I think the standard answer is because he wanted to be meitiv to His briyos.


@op let me ask you your question from another angle, we say 'bishvili nivra haolom' so the world was created for you, now the question is why were you created?

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #146 on: September 05, 2017, 05:41:11 PM »
Your post is a little mixed up with the Hebrew so I'm not sure I'm understanding it correctly, but from what I understand your saying that it would have been easier not to be born but now that he was born he should 'yifashfeish bimaasov and hashem will be good to him, wouldn't it be better not being born and needing to yifashfesh bimaasov to get hashem to be good to you? Also doesn't explain what the good hashem is doing and why/if it is better then not being born
I will give a very basic mashal. It can be much easier for someone to stay at home with no job and watch TV all day. He can eat from food stamps, have Sec 8 pay his rent etc. On the other hand he is then held back from opportunity to advance in life. By having a job he can now advance past his free apartment and possibly reach a luxurious lifestyle.

If someone is not created that is very easy, but they have no opportunity for spiritual growth and the closeness to hashem which that brings. Now that he was created yifashfesh bimaasav to attain this growth.
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline Starstruck

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #147 on: September 06, 2017, 05:46:26 PM »
1 - ה' in His great kindness allows us to partner with him in administering His justice. Being that the beis din is representing G-d, they can only punish when they are absolutely certain that the person is guilty just as He knows with certainty.

2 - Being that G-d's punishment is not always immediate, there are those that will not recognize that they will be punished for their actions which takes away the deterrence. Therefore Beis din must act.

Very well answered! I would just like to add one crucial point that I think is true. At the end of the day it's still possible for beis din to make a mistake whether through their error or through false eidim. So why should He rely on people? To that I think the correct answer is that Hashem will make sure that no one will be affected negatively or positively if they weren't deserving.

Similar to why by eidim there's a din of "כאשר זמם ולא כאשר עשה". And the rishonim say the reason why you don't punish the eidim is because obviously the person who they killed deserved it.

Offline Starstruck

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #148 on: September 06, 2017, 06:42:48 PM »

@op let me ask you your question from another angle, we say 'bishvili nivra haolom' so the world was created for you, now the question is why were you created?

I'm still going to go with how I understand the mesilas yesharim.

The reason I was created is to receive that goodness from Hashem by doing what He wants me to do. Thereby causing my neshama to be misdabeik in the shechina. And eventually reaping the benefits in olam haba (NOT gan Eden).

If I want to do it just to get the reward, that's not so ok but I would still have what's rightfully mine. But it would be much better if I did what was expected of me just out of pure love for Hashem without expecting anything in return. ( This is where I don't understand what I'm saying completely. I could understand the concept of being selfish but over here with what am I supposed to love Hashem so much that I should want to do the mitzvos for "free"? A parent's love technically doesn't either make sense it's just there for survival purposes. This question is based on the assumption that mitzvos are technically meaningless to Hashem and it's just a way to get your neshama to be misdabeik in the shechina.)

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #149 on: September 06, 2017, 06:47:09 PM »
I'm still going to go with how I understand the mesilas yesharim.

The reason I was created is to receive that goodness from Hashem by doing what He wants me to do. Thereby causing my neshama to be misdabeik in the shechina. And eventually reaping the benefits in olam haba (NOT gan Eden).

If I want to do it just to get the reward, that's not so ok but I would still have what's rightfully mine. But it would be much better if I did what was expected of me just out of pure love for Hashem without expecting anything in return. ( This is where I don't understand what I'm saying completely. I could understand the concept of being selfish but over here with what am I supposed to love Hashem so much that I should want to do the mitzvos for "free"? A parent's love technically doesn't either make sense it's just there for survival purposes. This question is based on the assumption that mitzvos are technically meaningless to Hashem and it's just a way to get your neshama to be misdabeik in the shechina.)
If we would fully understand the greatness of Hashem and how much good He does for us without it being earned we would definitely do mitzvos for "free"

אין לגבי משה מילתא זוטרתא היא
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline rs242

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #150 on: September 06, 2017, 08:31:56 PM »
We coming out that OP is not a missionary?

Offline a mirrer

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #151 on: September 07, 2017, 07:05:43 AM »
If made erroneously in a legitimate way it's fine.
Chazal specifically learn from the posuk אתם אפילו טעות
אתם אפילו טעות is davka that בית דין was מקדש not that the bnei hagola made a mistake what day בית דיןwas מקדש

Offline a mirrer

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #152 on: September 07, 2017, 07:10:16 AM »

Lo ADU Rosh was long before we had a set calendar.
but it was not set in stone back then since the גמרא יומא says that  ביוה׳׳כ שחל להיות בע׳׳ש כהן שדעתו יפה אוכלו חי

Offline churnbabychurn

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #153 on: September 07, 2017, 08:23:42 AM »
אתם אפילו טעות is davka that בית דין was מקדש not that the bnei hagola made a mistake what day בית דיןwas מקדש
did actually read the tosfos I took the picture of?

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #154 on: September 07, 2017, 08:38:09 AM »
but it was not set in stone back then since the גמרא יומא says that  ביוה׳׳כ שחל להיות בע׳׳ש כהן שדעתו יפה אוכלו חי
דף?
Feelings don't care about your facts

Offline a mirrer

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #155 on: September 07, 2017, 08:50:03 AM »
did actually read the tosfos I took the picture of?
whoops the picture didn't load so I didn't see it

Offline churnbabychurn

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #156 on: September 07, 2017, 10:46:57 AM »
דף?
It's pretty clear from the whole sugiya that lo adu rosh is not an absolute rule.

It's something bd tried hard to make happen, but not at all guaranteed. There could be other factors.

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #157 on: September 07, 2017, 10:53:37 AM »
It's pretty clear from the whole sugiya that lo adu rosh is not an absolute rule.

It's something bd tried hard to make happen, but not at all guaranteed. There could be other factors.
True. I just couldn't find what he quoted.
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Offline Starstruck

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #158 on: September 11, 2017, 07:56:25 PM »
If we would fully understand the greatness of Hashem and how much good He does for us without it being earned we would definitely do mitzvos for "free"

אין לגבי משה מילתא זוטרתא היא

I would like to point out something. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The feeling of wanting to do something for no reason just because you love someone so much is an emotion that Hashem created. So basically Hashem created this world to reward us, yet made it possible for us to not want the reward. That isn't a contradiction its just interesting to note.

Another interesting thing to note is that our initial love for Hashem is all based on what He gives us and does for us in this world (this is based on my next paragraph that understanding Hashem's greatness isn't a reason to love Him). If he didn't give us those things then we wouldn't have the love to do the mitzvos for "free". And it's not caused by the fact that He can make us live painful lives, because that isn't a reason to love someone. It's because He gave us the joys of life.

When you write that if we would understand the greatness of Hashem and all the things He gives us without deserving it we would do mitzvos for "free". I could understand that by the fact that He gives us so much without deserving it, but why would I love Hashem if I understood His greatness? Where do you see such a concept in our world, that you know it's true? For example, I don't love Trump or any other public figure anymore just because he's great.


Offline Starstruck

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Re: Jewish Philosophy
« Reply #159 on: September 11, 2017, 08:03:21 PM »
It's said that רשעים get rewarded in this world for all the mitzvos they do so they shouldn't get any reward in olam haba. How does that shtim with the fact that we say that any bit of olam haba is much more pleasurable than all the pleasures in this world combined?