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BEST POSTS:
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* The Vigilant Animal: Thinkers Who Reject the Myth of Human Gullibility (6-2-26)
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* The Norm Explainers (6-2-26)
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Jewish News
Posted in Hirhurim
Tagged council debate, debate link, jewish groups, jewish press, tourism link, tropper
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Wisdom Comes From The Children
Let us learn from the young because they know so much about life and they have so much wisdom to share with us. If children feel strongly about religious egalitarianism, well then, shouldn’t we follow them?
Talk show host Michael Medved notes that liberals say, follow your bliss. Conservatives say, do your duty.
Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky writes about his Bnai/Bnot Mitzvah class:
The ideals that emerged as being most important to them were equality in educational opportunities, and freedom to pursue one
Posted in R. Yosef Kanefsky
Tagged michael medved, orthodox shuls, rabbi yosef, rabbinate, religious teacher, teacher leader
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Very Religious
Whenever Jews tell me they were raised “very religious”, I know that they were not raised Orthodox. They were raised in some watered-down form of Judaism whose minimal demands struck them as “very religious.”
Whenever Jews tell me they are “proud Jews”, I know they are ignorant Jews, because I’ve never met a Jew who can read Hebrew tell me that he is a proud Jew. Jews who lead Jewish lives feel no need to pronounce on how proud they are of being Jewish.
I’ve noticed that Orthodox Jews rarely pronounce on how much more demanding their religion is than non-Orthodox forms of Judaism. They just take it for granted.
So, when Modern Orthodox rabbi Hyim Shafner writes on Morethodoxy, “Modern Orthodoxy, when done right, is obviously more demanding than standard orthodoxy”, it strikes me as obvious that he’s trying too hard to impress himself with his own religiosity.
Things that are obvious are not remarked upon. If Modern Orthodoxy were that obviously more demanding that charedi Orthodoxy, the odds are slight that anybody would feel the need to point this out.
In my experience, those who are leading demanding forms of religion seem to be the least likely to pronounce on how demanding their religion is when compared to the alternatives. Only those who are insecure in their religiosity pronounce on how demanding their religion is compared to the competition.
Posted in Modern Orthodox, Orthodoxy
Tagged jewish lives, minimal demands, Modern Orthodox, orthodox jews, orthodox rabbi, shafner
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I Loved The Movie ‘An Education’
This was my favorite movie of 2009. I was enraptured by it from the minute I read its plot summary: “A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.”
Today I had a woman tell me she saw the film and it left her unmoved.
So we talked and tried to figure out why I was moved and she wasn’t.
Then I said — maybe it’s a guy thing. Maybe guys — myself excluded of course because I am a Torah Jew — are just turned on by stories of the seduction of post-pubescent schoolgirls. They love stories about suave characters who can take an innocent girl and show her the world while wowing her parents and her friends.
I know that I identified all too readily with the girl’s admirer her age who just couldn’t cut it. He had no game. He was awkward and easy and her parents despised him and she couldn’t care two figs about him. No, she wanted the guy twice her age who had money and class and could show her the world.
If I wasn’t such a holy Jew, I’d love to be a sophisticated gentleman who could seduce 18-year old schoolgirls — and wow their parents! — and take them around the world and show them things. A guy loves to be able to show a girl things. To feel like a big shot. To open up the world to her. That’s glorious. It makes you feel like a man to be able to show a girl things.
The problem with women in their thirties and forties, they’re hard to impress. They’ve often seen more than you and they often earn more than you and they’ve got a lot staked on not being wowed by you, rather they’re contemptuous of men because they’ve been disappointed so many times, so where’s the fun in that?
Would you rather be with a girl who’s impressed by you or with some old bag who’s contemptuous of you?
Posted in Hollywood, Personal
Tagged forties, innocent girl, life changes, sophisticated gentleman, suburban london, torah jew
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Post-Orthodoxy & The Ordination Of Women As Orthodox Rabbis
I don’t know much about Torah but I instinctively find the notion of an ordained female Orthodox rabbi to be post-Orthodox aka outside of Orthodox Judaism.
The Orthodox Judaism I thought I knew prescribes very separate roles for men and women. It takes ten men to make a minyan. A woman can not be counted for a minyan. Almost all time-bound ritual commandments are binding upon men and not upon women.
How can a woman, who is not commanded, take a position of religious leadership over men, who are commanded to follow these commandments?
The recent change in title conferred upon my Morethodoxy colleague Sara Hurwitz has naturally generated a lot of intense reaction. Mahara
Posted in Orthodoxy, R. Yosef Kanefsky, Rabbis
Tagged fellow jews, gender line, intents and purposes, orthodox judaism, orthodox rabbi, orthodox rabbis, rabbi yosef, religious leadership, religious principle
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I Use Writing As A Sword
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Jim emails: “Jeez, you’re pathetic. And it’s baffling why you possess such a seemingly high opinion of yourself as a “writer.” All but one of your books have been self-published in the vanity press and the rest of your work is mostly copy-and-paste nonsense that you give away for free on the Internet. You suck, and are definitely NOT the towering intellectual figure you seem to think you are. You need to be blinded with a dull awl, your tongue pulled out with a pair of vice grips, doused in naphtha and set ablaze. You’re not a writer, moron, and you never will be. You’re just some jerk-off faggot with a blog. Get over yourself.”
Posted in Personal
Tagged awl, faggot, intellectual figure, naphtha, vanity press, vice grips
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Did Bankers Cause The Housing Crash?
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Posted in Economics
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Dennis Prager Spoke To Republican Members Of Congress This Week
I’ve been waiting for Dennis Prager to run for president since 1989.
I’m excited that the big day is almost here.
I feel it in my bones. Dennis Prager is at the top of his game. He is as eloquent and clear-thinking as he has ever been. He seems filled with energy and drive.
People of the world, Dennis Prager is the change you’ve been waiting for.
This past weekend, after President Obama addressed the annual retreat of Republican Members of the House, I, along with my Salem Radio colleague Hugh Hewitt, and John Fund of the Wall Street Journal, were also invited to address them.
I have never been as proud to be a Republican as I have this past year with your unanimity in opposing Obamacare and the other bills that would transform America. Please know — you need this feedback — that your having been able to stand together and do this has been a luminous moment in Republican Party history.
I would like show you some of the large themes involved in your present work.
First theme: It is harder to sell truths than to sell falsehoods.
It is very easy to say, “Vote for us and we will give you, we will give you, we will give you.” It is much harder to advocate what is right and to say, “Vote for us, but no, we won’t give you” — even though that is the more moral and the more American position. So you have the far more difficult task.
Posted in Dennis Prager
Tagged american position, annual retreat, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt, republican members, wall street journal
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Glum
I was pretty quiet during my Alexander Technique lesson today.
My teacher asked me what I was thinking.
“I’m thinking about asking my… for a loan,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “I’d be glum too.”
My teacher worked on my shoulders and back. I was holding my shoulders close in to my body. I was hunched as I dreaded the big ask.
As she helped me widen my back and my shoulders, to lengthen my torso, and to send my head forward (in relation to my neck) and up, I felt my glum mood lift and I started smiling for the first time all day.
I suddenly felt incredible freedom in my back. I felt light and joyous. I hopped around and laughed. I moved in and out of the chair with ease. I was a changed man.
Each emotion is only possible with a particular alignment of the body. Move out of that alignment and you’ll most likely move out of that emotion. For instance, I find that when I am tall and poised, it verges on the impossible for me to feel despair, anger, disgust, contempt or hatred. Instead, I feel tranquil.
In Alexander Technique, we don’t think of emotions causing posture or alignment causing thinking, rather we think of emotions, thinking and musculature constantly affecting each other. How we sit and stand and talk affects how we think and feel. How we feel affects how we think and move. How we think affects how we feel and use ourselves.
Posted in Alexander Technique, Personal
Tagged Alexander Technique, alignment, contempt, disgust, fantasizing, musculature, smarty pants, theory of relativity, university of aberdeen, verges
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Jewish-themed films earn Oscar noms
From jewishjournal.com:
Jews who scalp Nazis, an older Jewish man who seduces a non-Jewish schoolgirl and a Jewish family in the suburbs have earned three out of 10 best-picture nominations for the 82nd annual Academy Awards.
Posted in Articles
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