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True. To be fair none of these things would be technically conspiracies which would require the belief that some people secretly conspired to have some version of something be believed.
So we are rather just discussing the historical facts and which case is more likely. It’s hard for many to assess this case objectively because they enter into this discussion with underlying beliefs about the world. If the (extremely malleable during youth) human brain is led to believe something at a young age, most of the time no amount of evidence will lead them to realize it’s in fact incorrect. There are other facts that influence the likelihood; For example if there is a large amount of people that he lives with that also share that belief, that’ll decrease the odds of his knowledge being updated. Or if he is someone who has a more rational/objective mind and one who is less adept at remaining at his spot on the social ladder these factors all can affect it.
I think it is quite clear that if one comes at this from a purely objective standpoint without the underlying factors and simply assesses the evidence on both sides (or on one side), he shall come to the answer.
This phenomena is quite visible with the thousands of silly ideas/beliefs that populate the planet. To everyone else their beliefs are quite clearly silly, but to anyone raised believing them they have a very small chance of breaking their minds free.You seem to be under a misapprehension of what constitutes a conspiracy theory. Objectively assessing the evidence and exploring the historical record utilizing the scientific method wouldn’t fit any definition of one. However, believing that something is true because the people in your social group believe it’s true, while ignoring the evidence that clearly displaces the justification for that belief, would be a little closer to one.
You are allowed to appoint a great Rabbi from a few centuries ago the arbiter of permitted thoughts in a millenia old religion. Others aren’t obligated to follow. Contrary to what you might wish to be true, there are a multitude of strains that constitute Orthodox Judaism. As for Hashem’s initial intentions that’s up to his being to decide.
It’s a very easy and simplistic mindset to believe that everything that contradicts what you were raised to believe or adopted later in life, can be explained away with a whisk of the fingers.
“Anyone that disagrees with me (and therein muddying the waters of what constitutes the right approach) must be heavily influenced by desire for forbidden sins, and their thought process must be rendered inconsequential.”
-Imagine if we threw such heinous projections on every one of our great thinkers that said something that wasn’t word-for-word verbatim what his teacher taught him. We’d be very destitute indeed.
It’s the same mindset that leads to any sort of conspiratorial thinking.There is no apparent difference between the term ‘Chinuch’ and ‘Education’ besides origin. I’m unclear as to your meaning here.
Ah yes, I perfectly fit this frankly bad projection of some alien observer who interprets every part of frum culture through the lens of these supposed anti-torah blogs. I’m simultaneously justifying my anti-torah life choices, while never knowing the torah approach in the first place.
Perhaps instead of these bad attempts at playing Holmes, we grant the more likely possibility that I misspoke exactly as I claimed happened. You should just know to aid you in these future virtual detective works, that whatever “anti-torah blogs” you are referring to, they likely don’t have much of a market for those who aren’t initially acquainted with the concepts they are dismantling.
Haha Well it was equally unlikely to be either his birthday or day of death but yes I misspoke initially. Appreciate the correction.
As for your other comment, It’s quite silly. All of education is about learning from others. The more one learns from others the more one can combine that information and find novel interpretations if he so chooses. That’s universally what education is.
You contradict yourself. You ad hominem me with being “woefully uneducated”, and then mock the whole concept of education in its entirety. Do better.It’s origins are certainly shrouded in mystery. We know that in reality it was most likely not Rashbi’s birthday as this tradition seems to be based on nothing more than a typo (See Brodt), and the idea of it being the day of the students deaths seems weakly founded (as does that whole story to be frank. Many have suggested and successfully so, that their is more going on in the gemara’s discussion than met most eyes). That’s based on nothing but a Meiri (his only statement to be mentioned by others before his revival a few centuries later if i recall correctly), in the shrouded memory of a tradition from the geonim.
And there’s definitely no need to examine any of the dubious “kabbalistic” explanations.
Like many things, one should find his own meaning from the celebration rather than focusing on the true historical reasons for it’s practice.It seems to originate from a latin term: lapis sepecularis. Commonly known today as Selenite. Some mistake as coming from the Greek Speculum.
This material was used for windows before the transition to glass. Rambam unaware of the true etymology as he often was, mistakenly thought this came from a hodgepodge of Safek R’iya – Doubtful Visibility.
(This comment is based in part on the article “A Final Look Through the Aspaklaria”)I guess we subscribe to different viewpoints regarding this. I appoint no superpowers to our sages but view them as ordinary people (with extraordinary intellectual abilities) that were tasked as many have been, with the leadership of sending our traditions on to the next generation with a few additions/subtractions of their own predicated on their personal viewpoints. This happens in every generation, just a bit less so it seems, the further we get from the origins.
Our chachamim are not a monolith as is often implied but rather disagree quite often. In fact on quite a similar point we have a famous story regarding a variety of viewpoints originating from within Chazal:
“Reb Yehudah bar Ilai praised the Romans, saying how wonderful their government is. But Reb Shimon bar Yochai responded, “What are you talking about? These things that seem so great to you are really just for the Romans themselves, to help them carry out their evil plans!”
Two varying perspectives on the surrounding culture and the proper perspective to harbor towards it.
So how the enactors of this bracha would respond to it today is not perfectly clear. Therefore I will view it as I do, and you are free to continue viewing as you do.Agreed there’s nothing that can be conclusively drawn from his quote. Except that these sentiments were wellspread and their inclusion can be attributed to their time/place and don’t have to be pinned to eternal jewish thought.
You got me. I just searched for the basic writing up of the idea, mentioned I was quoting but didn’t elaborate for it’s irrelevant and for the potential animosity that could be arisen. If you’d prefer I write up the idea entirely in my own wording I can go ahead.
“The reliability of Diogenes’ sources has been questioned, even by secular scholars .”
I don’t doubt it. Every document of the ancient world is subject to such doubts as it’s clear that our idea of objective history is a more recent idea.
“The fact that Torah and lhavidl say some Greek philosopher both said a similar concept just shows that the idea resonated even in other cultures”
Agreed. These findings prove nothing completely. At their lowest, these writings show that these beliefs, wishes and praises were more widespread and were not known solely by their potential Rabbinic originator. Granting any levels more of veracity would be preferable in my eyes even if the reality is a toss-up, for the reasons I mention in my previous reply. This is not a bakasha we should be proud of. I think it’s fine to keep it around for now as we have done our due diligence and concocted an alternative for the ladies in our kehillos, and the apologetics that circulate regarding the differences in theirr terminology are satisfactory to most.Well as I view it as a particularly unfortunate bracha, I would prefer thinking of it’s inclusion as a victim of time and place rather than a conscious effort to ensure it’s underlying belief would remain for millennia.
“Rabbi yoshe ber soloveitchik, not one who was quick to label things heretical, clearly wrote in 5 drashos that to attribute any motivation or outside influence to anything in chazal is unequivocally apikorsus.”
He’s welcome to believe as he wishes but I find that quite uncompelling. Nobody lives in a vacuum.I thought it was well known that this was a symptom of their greco-roman surroundings. To say that our Chachamim were just pure chauvinists like the rest of the world would simply be unnacceptable.
Here are some quotes:
Diogenes Laertius, a contemporary of the Taanaim, writes,
“The story … is told by some of Socrates, namely, that he used to say there were three blessings for which he was grateful to Fortune: “First, that I was born a human being and not one of the brutes; next, that I was born a man and not a woman; thirdly, a Greek and not a barbarian.”
Diogenes Laertius lived about three hundred years before the gemara that gives us the version that is now in our siddurim
“It is taught in a baraita that Rabbi Meir would say: A man is obligated to recite three blessings every day praising God for His kindnesses, and these blessings are: Who did not make me a gentile; Who did not make me a woman; and Who did not make me an ignoramus.”[6
The version actually found in our siddurim is based on a a few lines later in the gemara.
Feel free to do more research for the exact sources I don’t have the most time on my hands, but Chas Vashalom allow our sages to be trodden upon.