This is the personal site of NafNaf Quartey, here you will find his thoughts on anything.The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. --Locke
I love music, all types of music... I've been searching for months for a definitive answer to what is "good", or at least not assur, music and haven't come up with any answers.
Months ago, after I stopped listening to the interplay of Thom's beautiful voice and the instrumentation, I listened to the words of this song and by the third hearing I realized that the song is about someone trying to convince another to do something pretty high on the ladder of aveiros.
The gemara in Sotah (daf 2a) gives suggestions as to Rebbi's juxtaposition of Sotah after Nazir:
למה נסמכה פרשת נזיר לפרשת סוטה? לומר לך שכל הרואה סוטה בקלקלה יזיר אעצמו מן היין
Rashi comments that the reason for the vow was to prevent קלות ראש. A drash that I heard in the name of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein speaks out the question that we should all be asking: Why would someone who watched a woman die because of עריות have to worry about קלות ראש; as he/she should be permanently sobered up by the experience and sufficiently strong to distance one's self from עריות?
The reason is a window into human nature that resonates with me even though I am troubled by the implications... Exposure to indecent acts desensitizes even the most pious soul. As countless accounts from people trapped in the throes of war and famine have shown; over time, incidents that would horrify most of humanity become commonplace, mundane. Viewers of the sotah in her disgrace would no longer have minds free of the concept of adultery, after watching the punishment meted out in the fashion of the Torah it would be rather indelibly marked into their brains. The memory would lie there tantalizing them with the forbidden. True, they would remember the "downside" to getting caught, but the temptation to all that is prohibited would tango with their yetzer hara waiting for a weak moment to invite its victim to the dance floor.
So while (in my opinion) we aren't meant to live cloistered lives, in the model of the amish or an order of monks, we aren't meant to place stumbling blocks before ourselves; life will surely place enough of those in our way without our help. If I am honest then, I might throw out certain Radiohead songs and continue through my entire music collection, waging war against the yetzer hara… But I have this one question, “What happens when you’re already ‘corrupted’?” Does it matter that I heard the Beatles sing about the same topics while in the womb? That I already have the kernel in my mind; like a splinter, ruining the perfection in an otherwise smooth board?
I choose the third way, but it might be a cop out; I choose to interpret the lines “Forget about your house of cards/And I'll do mine. Fall off the table…” to be about the uncertainty of making choices that have consequences, instead of a would-be lover trying to convince a woman to be his paramour.
“It’s not that there isn’t any value in learning the p’shut meaning of the text, it is after all one of the 70 panim of the Torah, but it’s value is only 1/70th of what there is to learn… And as far as the overall goal of our learning, it’s often next to useless.”
“OK, ok, but consider this: There are many types of midrashim; halakhic, homiletic, historical, narrative, and… expository. The expository midrashim are there mainly to explain pshat, not to add extra-biblical ideas or stories… The fact that we have a whole category of midrash which focuses on the pshut reading of the text shows that there a value in the p’shut reading of the text.”
“But wait; we are descendants of the Pharisees, the word itself alludes to the fact that we are the creators and the maintainers of the commentaries, we are m’phareish! We value the tradition of taking the Torah, figuring out what Gd wants us to do, and maintaining our explanations as a tradition that goes back to Moshe… We hold this mission in such high regard, that even the bas kol doesn't overturn all that we've been able to learn! It’s disingenuous to take one part of that tradition, a specific category of midrashim, and throw out the rest of the tradition that we’ve maintained. I guess I’m saying that without the various extra-biblical sources the basic text of the bible is at best very basic, and at worst, misleading.”
“But isn’t that assuming what you’re trying to prove, after all; often times the only reason that you know that the p’shut reading is incorrect is because it doesn’t match up well with halacha l’maisah?”
“You’re right, but we also believe “with perfect faith” that the entire Torah now in our hands is the same one that was given to Moshe… That’s the entire thing, not just what’s written; so it’s all or nothing, you can’t separate the basic translation of the written text from the additions… Our halacha is completely intertwined with the meaning of the written word because both come from the same source; so an understanding of one that contradicts the other is by necessity an incomplete or flawed understanding.”
“Don’t we say that the Torah contains everything?”
“Yeah”
“So it follows that there should be some value to what the Torah writes without resorting to smoke and mirrors.”
“The ‘other stuff’ as you’d call it isn’t smoke! It’s all fire.”
“Alright, so what does a “p’shut reading of the text” mean to you? For me it means an exact reading.”
Oh, I guess that in the context of what we’re talking about now I’d say that it’s a loose or basic reading… P’shat is one of those weird words that can mean both extremes of one concept. It’s either the end result of a determined effort to understand, or just a preliminary reading.”
“Yeah, I always thought of it in relation to being exact and straightforward, not just the beginning of an understanding…”
I was told to give a short dvar torah last shabbos... and since I noticed otherpeople put up things they thought or wrote I decided to join them. I know it's simple, but they said it had to be fast...
In our parsha, we learn about the Sotah, or a wife suspected of adultery. The torah says,” Any man, if his wife shall go astray and commit a treachery against him etc., The man shall bring his wife to the kohein, etc.”. The Torah is not referring to a case of proven adultery, rather this is a case where a woman has been discovered alone with a man who her husband has previously told her not to be. To quell or confirm the suspicion of adultery they go to the Beis HaMikdash enter a process of investigation. There are many interesting aspects of the sotah process but I’d like to talk about a specific step in the process. The torah commands us: That man shall bring his wife to the kohen and he shall bring her offering for her, a tenth of unsifted barley flour; he shall not pour oil over it and shall not put frankincense upon it, for it is a meal-offering of “jealousies”, a meal offering of remembrance, a reminder of iniquity. I had two questions about the parsha, why is a barley offering brought, all other meal offerings are brought with wheat; and why does the Torah describe the offering as an “offering of jealousies”. The last two of the three descriptions of the meal offering are more easily understood; the meal offering is being made only because of the suspected iniquity… But the first description is more difficult, what jealousy is being described, why is it plural? Is it the husband, the wife, the kohein? So I looked in the commentaries of Rashi, Ramban and I found a lot, but as our Rav. Lerner often says, “I don’t want to upset you guys, but on this subject there’s a Machloches!” Rashi sees the jealousy as that of the husband because he suspects his wife has committed adultery; and that of Hashem in response to the aveira. He comments, “It arouses against her two jealousies: The jealousy of the omnipresent, and the jealousies of the husband.” This is in much the same vein as the second of the Ten Commandments, “You shall not prostrate yourself to them (other Gds or idols) not worship them, for I am Hashem, your G-d, a jealous G-d.” The Chofetz Chiam also comments that: “Whoever is driven to forbidden sexual relationships will ultimately destroy his soul and forfeit his Heavenly portion as it says, “He who commits adultery with a woman lacks understanding; he who does that destroys the soul.” (Nidchei Yisrael, ch 20) In Chassidus we learn that the essence of the “Jewish soul is a portion of Hashem mamish”. By violating her relationship she not only severs the connection of souls that is affected by marriage but also her connection to Hashem. By committing adultery she places personal lust over the commands of the torah and transgresses against Hashem in much the same way as she transgressed against her husband. Ramban’s take on the pasuk is that it is speaking of the jealousy of the wife. He says, “… in my opinion the expression… refers to the beginning of the verse, stating that the husband shall bring the offering for his wife”; Ramban understands that the Torah is excluding her from the ability to bring the offering. He connects this concept with the last two descriptions of the offering, “(the offering) brings her iniquity to remembrance. Thus it is not fitting that she should bring it of her own property, but it is he who is to bring the meal offering to G-d so that he should take note of his suspicions.” I think Ramban sees a different purpose in the sotah procedure than Rashi; for Ramban this portion of the sotah procedure is done in order to shame the potential adulterer; whereas Rashi seems to see the bringing of the offering as an expression of anger on the part of the husband. But final result of the offering is essentially the same. Ramban continues saying, “the reason (that the meal offering comes from) barley or se’orim is that, “sa’arath (a storm of) the Eternal is gone forth in fury, a whirling storm that shall whirl upon the head of wickedness.” By bringing barley specifically, the husband arouses Hashem’s anger at injustice, just as the prophet warned it would be aroused in Yermiyahu (23:19) at false prophets. By bringing the connection of similar spellings Ramban is not only answering why barley is brought as an offering, but also describing the depth of the issur of adultery. Blaspheming against Hashem is one of the seven Noachide commandments; it precedes the Torah! That’s the depth of the transgression that one makes when committing adultery. We have a custom here of offering a blessing at the end of a dvar Torah; the easiest one for me now is to say, “I hope you all never have a significant other that does something so horrible.” But that’s not the best bracha. Rather, in this time after we have stood under a “chuppah” with Hashem and become married to him through our acceptance of the Torah and its mitzvos the story of the sotah helps us to better understand the our obligations to hashem. Our marriage to Hashem with the ketubah of Torah and mitzvos is a conceptual thing that can be hard for us to completely understand but we can more easily conceptualize blemishes on a relationship. So my bracha is that we all can actualize a pure connection with Hashem, free of suspicion supported by righteousness.
while I'm usually a bit of a comment whore, this time... be nice *don't hurt me*
“It’s not that there isn’t any value in learning the p’shut meaning of the text, it is after all one of the 70 panim of the Torah, but it’s value is only 1/70th of what there is to learn… And as far as the overall goal of our learning, it’s often next to useless.”