Sunday, March 29, 2009

Random Powerful Notion
That nothing new need be given (no new or continuous "revelations"), due to both latent "mathematical" potential within what had been Given, as well as what had been Given itself. Israel sins and enters Galut; therein acquiring new concepts, communities being destroyed and others experiencing 'refinements', elevating "sparks" of Holiness in the most unlikely of circumstances (Rav Kook and secularisms, etc) - but nothing could be let in that did not have some coordinating connections in the system. This could apply both positively and negatively - but not exhaustively; totalitarian coercion can be justified, but not militated for - anymore or less than democratic principles could be derived from sources within (under the building up of forces within - internal pressures/productive inclinations as well as 'incentive' from outsides). Bad science, astrology, mysticism, rationalism, materialisms, reductionisms...necessity is the mother of invention, in a sense - Divine absence makes the heart grow fonder as well. If things can be productively gained, what about the loss or lapse of some of what was Given, seemingly for eternity? Was all to be always maintained in ways we'd expect to see from the vantage point of the earth?..

"...Torah's method is to be a catalyst for the evolution of moral values in history, i.e. from polygyny to monogamy, from slavery to freedom, from war to peace, and from coercion to liberty. Some Torah laws are given in accordance with minimal standards,some for study alone, and some for realization of moral and spiritual ideals. Punishments and the system of legal coercion function heuristically to fashion social improvement without having any practical application today". R. Nachum Rabinovitch

I would add that Torah is not all that HKBH has Given; the world in all it's evolved, autopoetic bounty has given rise to the setting of the jewel, the People Israel and the Torah, the "danger room" that tests and refines Israel in ways specifically hinted at by prophecy from within the system. Torah may well have an exclusive, specifically moral purpose - but the universe has all manner of other purposes that HKBH supposes; what Israel "lacks" will be made up for by engagement, by trial, by grappling with the Book of The World. Torah in engagement with other aspects of creation has proved profoundly fruitful - in touching mere technology has produced the sciences, with government produced "rule of law", etc. And yet again, it is not all positive or negative.

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