Machon Ohr Aaron and Betsy Spijer
Last week we mentioned the danger to use chumroth (stringencies) to hide shortcomings and other discrepancies. In a different sense we are also confronted with similar problems when we consider how some people observe some well-established minhagim (customs) or even mitzvoth.
The need to engage in sport is self-understood. To exercise and to make sure that one keeps one’s body in good condition is considered a mitzva of the highest priority.
“We must believe in freedom of will, we have no choice.” This observation made by Isaac Bashevis Singer introduces one of the greatest problems in Jewish and general philosophy, freedom of will versus determinism. Many have attempted to solve the problem, but not one philosopher has been able to come up with a completely satisfactory response.
If anyone would ever argue that traditional Judaism is guilty of too much dogma and too little imaginative thought, a closer look into the world of rabbinical insight into the idea of revelation would cure him of such ideas.
One of the most common psychological conditions human beings find themselves in is denial. All men repress unpleasant experiences and do not want to be confronted with reality when it is not to their liking. Sigmund Freud was the first authority in the secular world to give full attention to this phenomenon. Still there is plenty of evidence that this problem existed since the earliest moments in human history.