Saturday, December 23, 2006
Weekly Parsha Blogging: Some Questions from the Last Few Weeks
Sorry I've been derelict in my blogging (and will continue to be as I will be visiting the folks soon), but I'll just ask a few questions to keep things rolling in case people want to discuss ...
(1) The Etz Chaim finds a connection between the story of Joseph (and the general leitmotif in Genesis that we Jews are descended from the youngest or at least not the oldest kid) and the Chanukah story: the triumph of the underdog -- do y'all agree?
(2) The Maccabees: religious fundamentalist terrorists a la the Taliban (is this the real reason the Rabbis made sure the books of Maccabees were not considered canonical even as they allowed Jews to celebrate Mithra's birthday under the guise of the Maccabean victory?) or freedom fighters fighting against religious establishment? Given the history, e.g. of the Puritans, is one person's Talib another's freedom fighter? And shouldn't our diplomatic and other efforts in the "war on terror" not ignore this reality lest we make ourselves more enemies by fighting against "freedom fighters"?
(3) Judah (is rewarded for and) enables the Biblical narrative to move on by selling Joseph. Commerce is often considered amoral (although the Talmud spends a lot of time trying to establish guidelines for business to be moral ... guidelines very similar to our commercial code which some want to gut ... many of whom claim also to want to legislate morality -- so what does that mean?), but is sometimes amorality better than mistaken morality which is often immorality? And what does that indicate about the possibilities for legislating morality and how futile it might be?
(4) C.f. when thinking of oft told stories around the holiday season my comments on Hume (a similar point was made in last night's sermon, albeit in a much more intelligent manner) from Rosh Hashana ...
(1) The Etz Chaim finds a connection between the story of Joseph (and the general leitmotif in Genesis that we Jews are descended from the youngest or at least not the oldest kid) and the Chanukah story: the triumph of the underdog -- do y'all agree?
(2) The Maccabees: religious fundamentalist terrorists a la the Taliban (is this the real reason the Rabbis made sure the books of Maccabees were not considered canonical even as they allowed Jews to celebrate Mithra's birthday under the guise of the Maccabean victory?) or freedom fighters fighting against religious establishment? Given the history, e.g. of the Puritans, is one person's Talib another's freedom fighter? And shouldn't our diplomatic and other efforts in the "war on terror" not ignore this reality lest we make ourselves more enemies by fighting against "freedom fighters"?
(3) Judah (is rewarded for and) enables the Biblical narrative to move on by selling Joseph. Commerce is often considered amoral (although the Talmud spends a lot of time trying to establish guidelines for business to be moral ... guidelines very similar to our commercial code which some want to gut ... many of whom claim also to want to legislate morality -- so what does that mean?), but is sometimes amorality better than mistaken morality which is often immorality? And what does that indicate about the possibilities for legislating morality and how futile it might be?
(4) C.f. when thinking of oft told stories around the holiday season my comments on Hume (a similar point was made in last night's sermon, albeit in a much more intelligent manner) from Rosh Hashana ...
# posted by alberich @ 6:16 PM 
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Hey DAS,
Happy New Year!
I see you havent changed over to the new blogger format! Keep the one you have.. because once you change you cant do the "search all blogs".. and a lot of people who made the change now go to the old formatted blogs.. like this one.. to use the "search all blogs" feature.
You might want to put some ads up here for the extra eyeball? Maybe some pelosi nudie pix or whatever you liberals like to look at?
Chag Sameach
Happy New Year!
I see you havent changed over to the new blogger format! Keep the one you have.. because once you change you cant do the "search all blogs".. and a lot of people who made the change now go to the old formatted blogs.. like this one.. to use the "search all blogs" feature.
You might want to put some ads up here for the extra eyeball? Maybe some pelosi nudie pix or whatever you liberals like to look at?
Chag Sameach
# posted by 
: 9:06 PM
: 9:06 PM
Happy New Year!
Ads ... hmmm ... if I put up ads, I can say that "I've sold out to The Man"? I dunno about Pelosi nudie picks (I do know someone who seems to have a crush on Pelosi, though, so I guess they could get me some traffic) ... somehow, she's not my type.
But you know me, though: I'm too lazy to change even if it would be a good idea, which it seems, as you point out, not necessarily to be. OTOH, Blogger has unilaterally decided to change my user-name: I can no longer pretend to be a Niebelung?
Ads ... hmmm ... if I put up ads, I can say that "I've sold out to The Man"? I dunno about Pelosi nudie picks (I do know someone who seems to have a crush on Pelosi, though, so I guess they could get me some traffic) ... somehow, she's not my type.
But you know me, though: I'm too lazy to change even if it would be a good idea, which it seems, as you point out, not necessarily to be. OTOH, Blogger has unilaterally decided to change my user-name: I can no longer pretend to be a Niebelung?
OK ... now it's changed my name back (it called me by my ineffible first name for a bit) ... tres weird as we effete liberal moonbats are wont to say ...
Actually if you DONT change it and Keep it as is.. we can still use this site as a home base to "search all blogs". That feature is knocked out for those of us who switched to the new format....
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# posted by : 12:28 PM
: 12:28 PM << Home
