Saturday, September 2, 2023

Replacing the universe

It's a big world. Anybody who has driven across Pennsylvania knows it. Trip takes 6 hours in a car that's racing along at 55 miles an hour. It's 312 miles. Try Texas now. 800 miles. Takes half a day by car. Try it in a horse and buggy or by walking. The latter would take 11 days. So the world is 24,000 miles around. Texas is only .33% of that.

Then there's the solar system and the galaxy, and then billions of galaxies. It's a big universe.

So what the manalists want to say is to forget the universe. What matters is Torah and mitzvos. But forget about the mitzvos, just focus on Torah study. But forget about the Torah. Just study Gemara. But forget about the Gemara. Just learn up yeshivishe mesechtos or rather a few portions of a handful of chapters of them. If you go to Yeshivas Chaim Berlin in Brooklyn, it will be a few pages. And forget about the aggadata and practical halacha. Just engage in Brisker lomdus, abstract notions about the derivation of the halacha as found on the few pages that are supposed to replace the entire universe.

And the yeshivist rabbis demand that every male dedicates his life to this and not spend a second doing anything else. But if they must they can miraculously earn lots of money after reluctantly leaving yeshiva without having been allowed to engage in any job training and send that money to the yeshivist rabbis who will replace the universe with the Brisker Lomdus on their behalf. And if you don't buy into all this, you are a heretic. 

I just summed up the manalist mentality. 

I think you'll find saner people in a mental institution. 








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