Sago Boulevard

What’s your nerd score? (via Johnny-Dee)

Because it’s been a while since I last quoted the Maverick Philosopher, Bill Vallicella:

Doubt is the engine of inquiry. But inquiry ultimately rests on faith, faith that there is something to be known, something that lies beyond our shifting experiences… [T]here must be faith to assure us that there is an object of inquiry. Otherwise, doubt turns in upon itself and consumes itself. Doubt should serve the purpose of inquiry into what is transcendent of our shifting experiences; it is not an end in itself.

Jonathan Adler, at VC, quotes from Nelson Lund’s article in the Albany Law Review on why conservatives ought to oppose racial profiling. Here’s the excerpt: (more…)

Bear with me as I ramble a little bit.

It’s presumptuous to link 9/11 with Elul in a theological sense or to suggest that the victims were somehow punished for our collective sins. But since 9/11 (both in 2001 and today) is, in fact, in the month of Elul, I think it’s appropriate to use our memory of, and reaction to, such a horrific tragedy as a launchpad for teshuvah.

The Halakhah emphasizes the close relationship between death and repentence. Our fast days, which primarily commemorate national tragedies, are treated as days of teshuvah. It’s important to recognize that tragedy can have this effect even if we don’t see it as a direct punishment for sin. When thousands of ordinary people are suddenly killed while going about their daily routines, it should remind us that death does not wait for us to be ready.

I was thinking about this during davening this morning when the gabbai signaled to the shaliach tzibbbur to skip to Kaddish after Shemoneh Esreh. It’s Monday and skipping the long tachanun is usually appreciated; we all like to finish a few minutes earlier. But then it occured to me, the victims of 9/11 never had a chance to say minhah. If they skipped tachanun on that fateful morning, they never had another chance to say it.

Then another thought occured to me. Maybe the reason that U’netaneh Tokef is such a meaningful part of Yamim Nora’im davening is because, by emphasizing this idea, it further motivates us to do teshuvah. If our fates are sealed for the upcoming year, we may not have another chance to say al chet.

In all likelihood, the attack on the World Trade Center will not be the last tragedy we witness. The library I’m sitting in may collapse and I may not be able to daven minhah this afternoon. But if I do, I’ll have in mind those who didn’t have that luxury five years ago, today.

In an old post, about a year ago, I suggested that Originalism with respect to constitutional interpretation is fundamentally different from an traditional approach to interpreting Halakhah. Here’s the relevant excerpt:

The Torah itself is God’s message to humanity and thus, interpreting the Torah is inextricably tied to interpreting God’s will or intention. Consider an analogy: Somebody writes you a rather vague letter. In trying to make sense of the letter itself, you’re also trying to figure out what the author had in mind while writing it. You can’t separate those two tasks.

The Constitution, on the other hand, is not simply the will of James Madison or of the members of Constitutional Convention. The relationship of Madison’s intention with the text of the Constitution is incidental.

George objects to my distinction. In a recent email (it’s actually not so recent but I procrastinated responding to him), he writes:

how is the constitution not simply the will of the cont[i]nental congress (representing the will of the nation). if it is how it that diffrent from reading and interpreting a letter a friend sent you?

The key difference between the Constitution as “the will of the [C]ont[i]nental [C]ongress” and Halakhah as God’s will is one of justification. The Torah’s authority is justified by God having commanded it. (That’s an oversimplification but I don’t want to get into the Euthyphro dilemma right now.) The goal of interpreting the Torah (and, by extension, Halakhah in general) is to identify what message God intends to convey because what justifies it is God intending to convey it. Interpreting a letter from a friend is similar insofar as the goal is to figure out what my friend wants to tell me. The letter would have no function otherwise.

The Constitution, on the other hand, does not derive its authority from James Madison or the Continental Congress. Had it been written by a 10-year-old who was bored one day during math class and then ratified by the states, it would have the same status that it has today.

This just hits the nail right on the head.

(via ADDerRabbi)