Our residents have been attacked by a lawless entity, and we can’t just stand by and pretend this is acceptable.
– Mayor Daniel Biss of Evanston,
commenting on Border Patrol attacks on Evanston residents
This week’s featured post is “What would a Republican healthcare plan look like?” I feel good about this post. Even if you usually skip the longer articles, you might want to read this one.
Ongoing stories
- Trump’s assault on American democracy. Tuesday’s elections show that the clock is ticking on Trump’s bid for autocracy. If he allows fair elections in 2026, he’s going to lose control of Congress. Meanwhile, his thugs continue to abuse the citizens of Chicago.
- Climate change. The COP30 summit is meeting in Brazil this week, with no US participation.
- Gaza. The next step in the Gaza peace plan is to assemble a “stabilization force” of peace-keeping troops from other Muslim countries. The UAE has opted out. Turkey wants in, but Israel is dubious. Meanwhile, Netanyahu pledges to enforce the ceasefire “with an iron fist“.
- Ukraine. The Russian advance continues, but it’s very slow and costly.
This week’s developments
This week everybody was talking about the Democrats’ sweeping election victory
Every major contested race — Virginia’s and New Jersey’s governors and other statewide offices, NYC’s mayor, the California’s Prop 50 — went the Democrats’ way, usually with high turnout and by unexpectedly large margins.
Many words have been written and spoken about what this means. To me, it comes down to this: In the rosy scenarios where the Trump autocracy fails and American democracy survives, winning big in 2025 was a key step. An autocrat’s biggest strength is the myth of his invincibility. You go along with what he wants because there seems to be no other choice.
Certainly that has been the case inside the Republican Party. For 10 months, Congress has virtually ceased to be a factor in American government, because the Republican majorities are so cowed by Trump. The Senate approved cabinet nominees (like Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, and RFK Jr.) that everyone knew were unqualified and probably dangerous. Both houses have sat mutely while Trump usurps Congress’ power of the purse and its war powers. Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill needed near-unanimous Republican support to pass, and got it — despite the fact that it will take Medicaid coverage away from millions of Republican voters. The House has simply gone home for six weeks rather than vote on subpoenaing the Epstein files.
After Tuesday, Republicans in elected offices have to wonder if they’re committing political suicide by following Trump so blindly.
The big message comes from New Jersey, where Trump’s 2024 gains among Hispanic and Asian voters vanished. Passaic County is 43% Hispanic, according to the 2020 census. But it went for Trump by 7% in 2024. Tuesday, it went Democratic by 26%.
Statewide, Trump lost New Jersey by less than 6%, but Mikie Sherill won by more than double that margin. A similar 6% swing in 2026 elections could flip a lot of Republican seats to the Democrats.
Of course, there is a downside to these results as well: Now that’s it’s obvious that MAGA candidates won’t hold control of Congress in free and fair 2026 elections, the pressure to steal those elections grows.
I think it’s important not to get caught up in the Democratic polarization narrative the mainstream media is pushing. Yes, Mamdani won as a Democratic Socialist, while Sherill and Spanberger won as moderate Democrats. I don’t see this as a problem.
The unifying principles are to be authentic, to recognize that a large percentage of the electorate feels poorly served by our economic system and left out of our politics, and to say to those people: “I see you, and I want to do specific things to help you.”
The specific policies, and whether they are leftist or centrist, are far less important.
Above all, don’t get caught up in the Socialism vs Capitalism argument, as if these were two Manichean forces inevitably at each other’s throats. We are all socialists and we are all capitalists. Do you support your town having a public fire department? To that extent, you’re a socialist. Do you want your town’s restaurants to compete on price and quality, letting the local market decide which ones thrive? To that extent, you’re a capitalist.
The issue is where to draw the line between the public and private sectors. That’s a serious and important question, but it has many viable answers and many opportunities for compromise that you’ll miss if you see nothing but capitalist/socialist polarization.
A lot of people are angsting over the conflicting poll results: Trump’s approval continues to sink, but the public’s opinion of the Democratic Party hasn’t improved. I don’t think it’s that mysterious: In most of the country, you can’t win just by being a generic Democrat. People don’t connect the Democrats with any particular message, so you have to bring your own message. You also have to be an individual and project a personality people identify with.
We might go into next November with the polls still close on whether people want Republicans or Democrats to control Congress. But if Democrats do their job right, people will look at the Democrat running in their district and find something they like or are even excited by.
Too much fun to pass up: A kindergarten teacher responds to Trump’s tantrum after losing Tuesday.
and the shutdown
Which will probably end in a few days as the longest in history, breaking the record from Trump’s first term. Senate Republicans got the exact number of Democrats they needed to pass their “compromise”, which amounts to Democrats surrendering without getting anything meaningful in return.
The deal:
- funds the full government through January 30
- funds the Departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs for the full fiscal year (i.e., until October 1)
- funds SNAP (i.e. food stamps) for the full fiscal year
- gives federal workers fired during the shutdown their jobs back and prevents further layoffs through January 30
- grants backpay to all federal workers furloughed or working without pay during the shutdown
What it doesn’t do: anything to help the tens of millions of Americans whose ObamaCare premiums are going to skyrocket for 2026. Majority Leader Thune has promised a vote on a bill to preserve the subsidies that kept those plans affordable, but that’s a political concession rather than anything real. Even if the Senate passes that measure, Speaker Johnson has said it won’t get a vote in the House. So basically, the Senate vote will frame the issue, positioning Democrats as the ones who voted for it and Republicans as the ones who blocked it. But it won’t actually help anyone pay for health insurance.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, one of the eight Democrats who voted for the bill, exemplified the defeatist attitude Democrats so often bring to negotiations: “This was the only deal on the table.” The Republican position is what it is, and Democrats just have to adjust to it.
The Democrats’ surrender came in spite of all indications that they were winning the political battle of the shutdown: Polls showed Trump and the Republicans were taking more of the blame, and Democrats overwhelmingly won Tuesday’s elections.
Josh Marshall recognizes all that, but finds this silver lining:
When the time came Democrats fought. They held out for 40 days, the longest shutdown standoff in history. They put health care at the center of the national political conversation and inflicted a lot of damage on Trump. At 40 days they could no longer hold their caucus together. And we got this.
That’s a sea change in how the congressional party functions. And that’s a big deal. Many people see it as some kind of epic disaster and are making all the standard threats about not voting or not contributing or whatever. That’s just not what I see. It’s a big change in the direction of the fight we need in the years to come that just didn’t go far enough. Yet.
… Meanwhile, keep purging all the folks who can’t get with the new program. If a senator is from a comfortably Blue State and wasn’t vocally in favor of fighting this out, primary them — toss them overboard. After March, Dick Durbin realized he needed to retire. Let’s see some more retirements. But don’t tell me nothing has changed or that this is some cataclysmic disaster. It’s not. This accomplished a lot. It demonstrated that Democrats can go to the mat when the public is behind them and not pay a political price. It dramatically damaged Donald Trump. It cued up the central arguments of the 2026 campaign. It just didn’t go far enough.
Meanwhile, passing the House is not a done deal yet. It’ll be interesting to see how many Democrats hold out, and how many Republicans think even this victory isn’t big enough.
And the House will have to come back into session to end the shutdown. Will Johnson find some new excuse not to seat Adelita Grijalva? Will he violate House rules to avoid a vote on subpoenaing the Epstein files? Expect a lot of soap opera in the next few weeks.
and Trump’s violent thugs
Don’t miss this interview, where Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss talks to a woman who was victimized by Border Patrol agents in an Evanston incident that has gone viral. “They’re more afraid of us than we are of them,” she says.
What they — ICE and the Border Patrol — are afraid of is not violence, but people following their vehicles, blowing whistles around their agents, and making videos of what they do. Biss was also interviewed by Democracy Now (the link at the top of the page) in a segment that included video of major ICE abuses in Evanston.
Well, on Friday, which was, by the way, Halloween, ICE and CBP were all over Evanston. It was a terrifying day. I couldn’t go two minutes without a notification coming up on my phone: They’re at this corner; they’re at this corner; they’re grabbing this landscaper, and so forth. And they were doing what they usually do these days, which is drive around town looking for someone working on a lawn whose skin is not white, and grab that person and abduct them. And so, the rapid responders were out in force, and there was a lot of activity, and I was driving around trying to do what I could.
And then, in the early afternoon, the following thing happened. The vehicle, which was driven by a CBP agent, for whatever that’s worth, that had been driving around the region and was being followed by residents — which is what happens all the time because our community is rising up against this invasion — they decided they don’t want scrutiny, they don’t want to be followed, they don’t want to be observed, they don’t want to be videotaped, and, most of all, they don’t want to be criticized. They appear to have acted deliberately to cause an accident. They jammed on the brakes right after going through an intersection and to force the car following them to rear end them, which, of course, created a scene. And there were people who gathered, who were watching and who were yelling at them and blowing their whistles and screaming. And then they appear to have just started beating people up for no reason. And folks may have seen these videos, that have gotten a lot of attention, including one where they’ve got this young man on the ground, and his head is on the asphalt, and they’re literally punching him in the head. And then, after a while of this, they jammed three people into their vehicle, abducted them, drove them around, and eventually, later on, released them.
If you’re not familiar with the Chicago area, you may not realize how incredible this whole scene is. Evanston is the lakefront suburb just north of Chicago. It is the home of Northwestern University, and in general is very upscale. It’s not a place where ICE or CBP should be looking for “the worst of the worst”, as Trump promised during the 2024 campaign. So if you look at what Trump’s thugs are doing and say, “That would never happen here, in my town”, think again.
and the Supreme Court’s tariff hearing
I have been deeply skeptical of this Supreme Court’s ability to defend the Constitution against Trump. In particular, I’ve doubted they will apply the same standards to Trump that they did to Biden. They invented the “major questions doctrine” and greatly expanded the “non-delegation doctrine” precisely to limit Biden’s executive authority. Now, those same standards clearly apply to Trump’s sweeping tariffs, but I’ve doubted the Court will bother to notice.
I’m less sure about that skepticism now. Wednesday’s oral arguments showed some of the conservative justices — especially Gorsuch — worrying about major questions and non-delegation. The issue in a nutshell is that tariffs are taxes, and the taxing power belongs so intrinsically to Congress that it can’t be delegated to the President.
Gorsuch raised the question of whether Congress could also delegate its power to declare war, and later wondered what a more liberal president could do with the tariff power: Suppose a Democratic president declared a climate emergency and tariffed the importation of internal combustion engines?
You can’t always deduce justices’ final opinion from the questions they ask, but I expected the conservative justices to be creating room for themselves to give Trump what he wants, as they so often do. I didn’t see that.
The Court also won’t be reversing its same-sex marriage decision this term.
and you also might be interested in …
Nancy Pelosi announced her retirement from Congress when her current term ends in January.
By any standard, Pelosi is a giant in congressional history. She was the first female speaker, and the most effective speaker of either party in my lifetime. She took criticism from the left because of her broadly centrist policies, but I can’t remember her blocking any liberal proposal if the votes were there to pass it.
Retirement, like death, is one of those moments that calls for a magnanimous response. But of course, Trump doesn’t have a magnanimous bone in his body. He responded to the news by calling Pelosi an “evil woman” and saying that “she did the country a great service by retiring”.
I’m going to display my own lack of a magnanimous response by commenting on the death of Dick Cheney. I won’t rehash all the things I fault him for, but I regret that now he will never stand trial at the ICC in The Hague.
When 60 Minutes asked Trump about pardoning crypto billionaire Changpeng Zhao, he claimed not to know who Zhao is. The company Zhao founded has made deals with the Trump family’s crypto venture, but that couldn’t have anything to do with the pardon, could it?
I’d like to ask Speaker Johnson which option is worse: that Trump is lying about a corrupt pardon, that he signs pardons without knowing who the people are, or that his dementia has progressed to the point that he can’t remember the decisions he makes.
Here’s a cartoonist’s take on how media coverage has changed in the last 50 years:
and let’s close with something natural
The Guardian has a spectacular gallery of nature photography.
The Weekly Sift 
Comments
I think the tariff thing before the supreme court is less about all of a sudden them deciding the constitution matters, but acting in their own self interest because the tariffs are bad for their portfolios. Expect them to cave to Trump when it doesn’t specifically hurt them financially. Remain skeptical.
There will be no administration representative in Brazil but my understanding is that Newsom is attending. That’s not nothing.
משנה תורה — קידושין סוגיה ראשונהAn introduction to the Vilna Sha’s Bavli. This edition has two primary Reshonim commentators Rashi and the Baali Tosafot. Rashi functions as the dictionary. The grand-children of Rashi introduce Talmudic common law. The latter commentators decreed a נידוי ban upon the Rambam in 1232. Spinoza influenced by possibly either by Greek Stoicism philosophers like Heraclitus and Plotinus. Some pre-socratic philosophers, such as Anaximander, likewise expressed ideas akin to pantheism.
The Jewish community in Amsterdam made the decision to impose a cherem decree upon Benedict de Spinoza in 1656. Rationalist philosophy, developed by both Maimonides (Rambam, 1135-1204) and Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) utilized Greek philosophical concepts to shape their theological and philosophical views. The Rambam’s embraced the Muslim concept of a Universal God and rejected that only the 12 Tribes of Israel accepted the Torah at Sinai. This key Talmudic concept therefore understands HaShem as a local Tribal God. Spinoza, perhaps influenced by Hinduism – specifically Brahman – both express the view that God and Nature – Deus sive Natura. A Latin phrase that translates as “God or Nature.” Rambam’s emphasis on the unity of God paved the way for Spinoza’s conviction that the divine lives in all aspects of the universe, leading to his famous statement that “God or Nature” (Deus sive Natura).
The Talmud emphasizes that God’s essence simply beyond human understanding or comprehension. Akin to asking a frog to explain a word definition found in Webster’s dictionary. Speculating about God’s nature across the board, viewed as presumptuous or inappropriate – better that such a person – never even born.
Hence the Talmud interprets the language of the Torah: צדק צדק תרדוף as a limitation of faith restricted on the obligation of common law courts to impose fair compensation of damages. Prophets functioned as the police enforcers of Sanhedrin courtroom rulings which established Jewish common law within the borders of the oath sworn lands. By stark contrast Av tuma avoda zara employs rational theology as its fulcrum wherein it defines the nature of the Gods. The Nicene Council declared Trinity whereas Muhammad declared a strict Monotheism. Both this and that failed to comprehend that time oriented oath sworn commandment create מלאכים יש מאין תמיד מעשה בראשית.גופא: The Vilna Shas, as expressed in the opening thesis statement establishes Rashi as a Webster’s dictionary and the Talmud as a common law commentary which interprets any given sugya of Gemara often through similar Case/Rule precedents located in other Gemara mesechtot. משנה תורה means “Common Law”. The Rambam did not know this basic fundamental. Rabbi Yechuda Ha’Nasi named his Mishna based upon the second Name given to the Book of דברים; the Mishna teaches common law judicial rulings made by Sanhedrin courtrooms. Statute law originates from authority figures; law imposed or decreed by some Legislature, Congress, or Parliaments qualify as statute law. Rambam’s code of halacha – statute law.
Its this fundamental distinction which forever separates Shabbat from Chol, common law from statute law. Hence in 1232 the rabbis of Paris agreed with the court of Rabbeinu Yonah in Spain to impose the ban of נידוי upon the person of Rambam. Nothing can altar the simple fact that Rambam’s halachic posok reflects statute law rather than common law. Just that simple. No fancy dance’n.
As a two-dimensional painting cannot accurately depict three dimensional life, so too and how much more so statute law cannot replace judicial common law rulings which strive to make fair restitution of damages inflicted. Statute law by stark contrast prioritizes religious ritual observances which requires no k’vanna. The restriction of Torah and Talmud to קום ועשה ושב ולא תעשה מצוות directly compares to a person who publicly profanes Shabbat in front of ten Torah observant men. Both time oriented commandments שבת וקידושין actively require a minyan; based upon the false oath sworn by the 10 spies which duplicated the floods which destroyed the generations of Noach and the Orthodox rabbis refusal to make aliyah to the Zionist Palestine British mandate in the 20s and 30s which thereafter witnessed the Shoah.
Cutting a Torah brit alliance – requires swearing a Torah oath, just as does observance of both Shabbat and קידושין. This basic fundamental, Orthodox Judaism today, just as ignorant as Rambam’s failure to grasp the meaning of משנה תורה.
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כי יקחאיש אישה. ולא כתב (דברים כב) כי תקח אשה לאיש. מפני שדרכו של איש לחזר על אשה ואין דרכה של אשה לחזר על איש. משל לאדם שאבדה לו אבידה. מי חוזר על מי? בעל אבידה מחזר על אבידתו
Disciplined Talmudic scholarship requires making a precedent search for both the p’suk as well as the language of a גזרה שווה which links our Gemara to :נדה לא. Its these *asterisks, which quietly instruct how to learn a dof of Gemara practicing the Torah wisdom of common law. Notice, if you will, the frequency that the Baali Tosafot likewise examine a sugya of Gemara by comparing it to these identical outside source precedents. Common law – learns by means of making precedent study analysis. The Bavli employs these *astericks to other sugyot in the Sha’s Bavli. But once a person discerns the exact phrase of the Mishna which that sugya addresses, then likewise – possible to make a Yerushalmi search. The two opposing Gemara frequently instruct conflicting ideas on the exact same subject. To make a Yerushalmi depth analysis, hands down far superior than relying merely upon Reshonim commentaries.
Rav Nemuraskii ז”ל he repeatedly emphasized to me the central importance of sugya integrity. He explained that each sugya of Gemara resembles – to the structure of a sonnet or a thesis statement. This permits a scholar, for example – when the Baali Tosafot jump off the Dof, to establish a syllogism of fixed rigid logic: Opening vs Closing thesis statement and one din adjacent to the off the dof Baali Tosafot גזרה שווה precedent. The objective of this type of discipline in learning, to view the same identical idea from a completely different Mishna/Gemara perspective. Based upon the logical syllogism premise: if A & B accurate therefore the concluding proposition equally accurate. Standard syllogism deductive reasoning.
Rav Nemuraskii’s sh’itta of Talmudic learning, easier to learn in practice than to describe it in theory. The יסוד of this Talmudic kabbala, sugya integrity across the Shas. This fixed point in all Talmudic literature permits downstream generations to learn any off the Dof sugya based upon the established principles that a syllogism consisted of three parts.
The statute law halachic codifications obliterated, in their pursuit of fixed religious ritual practices so as to simply Judaism’s faith in God – Talmudic sugya integrity. Furthermore, no judge in any Sanhedrin courtroom ever tried a case where “belief in God” shaped the outcome of the judgment! To permit personal beliefs in theology to determine the rule of law defines the לא תעשה מצוו not to accept a bribe. Justice addresses the issue of damages inflicted NOT a persons’ personal theological belief system.
The wisdom necessary to compare one Gemara sugya with a similar but different mesechta Gemara sugya distinguishes רמז\סוד logical diagonal which separates פרדס fluid inductive logic from syllogism rigid deductive logic; like the difference between Calculus variables vs. plane geometry proofs and algebraic equations. Dynamic vs. static mathematical reasoning.
The latter error compares to the Middle Ages wherein catholic/protestant priests or pastors would invade synagogues across Europe every Shabbat and force Jews to listen to their utterly despised and abhorred preaching attempts to convert us to convert and embrace their murderous Av tuma avoda zara religion(s). The church(s) imposed their evil ghetto gulags for 3 Centuries as a despicable expression of their perverted notions of justice. Post Shoah, NEVER AGAIN — Jews have sworn a solemn oath that Goyim shall not judge Jews in their corrupt courtrooms ever again — starting with the UN/ICJ or ICC/Rome treaty. Both institutions post Oct 7th 2023 have utterly destroyed their good name reputations.
The g’lut Yeshiva education system, even in ארץ ישראל, has yet to cast off the tuma klippa shells. In Kabbalistic mysticism, particularly as articulated by the Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria), the concept of klippot representative of the “shells” or “husks” that envelop and conceal the divine light. These shells are often associated with forces of evil and obstruction to spiritual elevation. Klippot are viewed as barriers that hinder spiritual enlightenment and individual connection to the divine. Just as a fruit’s shell may protect and hide its nourishment, klippot obscure the underlying divine light.
In Kabbalistic thought, the interplay between holiness and klippot illustrates the duality within creation. Klippot embody chaotic, destructive forces that can lead individuals away from divine consciousness and fulfillment. Encountering klippot understood as part of a spiritual journey. Overcoming these shells allows individuals to reclaim the divine light veiled within our Yatzir Ha’Tov; transforming tuma middot spirits from within our Yatzir Ha’Raw by remembering the oaths sworn by the Avot wherein their oath brit first created the chosen Cohen people.
Lurianic Kabbalah often categorizes klippot into different levels or types. The ‘Ten Klippot’ parallel the Sefirot (divine attributes), as taught through the kabbalah of the Zohar; a profound Reshon midrashic commentary to the Chumash. Published after the Pope and king of France publicly burned all the Talmudic hand written manuscripts in France in 1242. The ‘Ten Klippot’, according to the Talmud – they represent the mussar דרוש\פשט which remember the ten times the generation of the Wilderness, under the leadership of Moshe, Aaron and Mariam, denied our oath Sinai brit alliance.
This idea supports the משל, that each klippa serves to conceal the light associated with each corresponding Sefira. T’shuva does not spin around the central axis of regret, like it does in the religions of avoda zara. Rather, t’shuva – based upon Moshe reminding HaShem of the oath sworn to the Avot – spins around remembering the 3 oaths sworn by the Avot wherein each cut an oath brit alliance concerning the eternal life of the chosen Cohen people.
Just as the klippot conceal the divine light, statute law conceals the living precedent of the Oral Torah. Restoring sugya integrity – an act of tikkun—the peeling away of the husk to reveal the oath brit within common law itself.
The precedent for the 10 Sefirot, the עשרת הדבורות מסיני. The Reshon Zohor midrashic commentary, obviously influenced by the alien 10 commandment reading of the Xtian bible. The Talmud instructs that Israel only accepted the first two Sinai commandments prior to Israel demanding that Moshe rise up and receive the rest. Israel did not receive the rest of the Written and Oral Torah revelation until after Yom Kippur 40 days after the sin of the Golden Calf translation of the שם השם סיני רוח הקודש to the av tuma avoda zara word אלהים.
Limiting the initial revelation of Sinai restricted to only the first two commandments — utterly repudiates the av tuma avoda zara of both Xtianity and Islam. Neither ever once bring the שם השם first commandment Name. Islam’s strict monotheism violates the 2nd Sinai commandment; if only one God lives then no need for this commandment. Alas the false prophet Muhammad ignored all the NaCH prophets whose mussar condemned the worship of avoda zara by Israel – starting with Egypt under Par’o. The idea of some ONE Universal God, an avoda zara which defines the error of the Rambam’s statute law assimilation, completely denies that only Israel accepted the yoke of the kingdom of Heaven at Sinai; that only through observance of tohor time oriented commandments, which require prophetic mussar as their k’vanna, does the Torah brit continuously creates the chosen Cohen people יש מאין.
Shall follow the Order of precedents based upon our Gemara “outline”. Statute law reads the Gemara as a finished product. A fundamental error; a building – no matter how tall, regardless of the Rambam Yad or Karo בית יוסף – with a cracked foundation, must come down. The Tur collage of Reshonim opinions fails to discern between common law from statute law. The sloppy scholarship made by assimilated Reshonim produced the fruits of ירידות הדורות, no different than did king Shlomo’s Temple which replaced the establishment of Sanhedrin Federal common law courtrooms – based upon the din of the two prostitutes who compare to Moshe standing before the court of Par’o.
The Talmud serves merely as a outline which requires down stream generations to make a פרדס logic analysis. Each down stream scholar can logically compare the Talmudic outlined Case to his own theory of ideal precedents! The Vilna Shas is not a book but a courthouse. Rashi provides the language of testimony; Tosafot the case precedents; and the Gemara, the living motion of common law. Against this stands Rambam’s Yad — the first codified statute law to replace the covenantal courtroom with bureaucratic religious decree. The founding fathers of the American Republic separated Church from State in the first Amendment to their Constitution.
Talmudic analysis requires gopher work. דברים כב:יג located within the larger sugya כלל: כב:יג-יט. This sugya contains no שם השם מידה. Hence, by the way Rav Aaron taught me, the sugya כלל: כב:ה-יט. The opening sugya introduces: ולא ילבש גבר שמלת אשה כי תועבת. Our Gemara likewise makes distinctions between Men and women. The next sugya addresses the obligation to respect even the dignity of animals. The next sugya addresses the dignity of the land itself. The next sugya forbids working animals possessing different innate strengths together; this equally applies to fabrics from plant vs animal sources. The mitzva of tzitzit serves to confine the purpose of Torah commandments to protection of dignity and value.
Par’o crushed the dignity and value of g’lut Jewry stateless refugees, as did both the Church and Islam. Now within this context the intent of כי יקח איש אשה ובא אליה ושנאה ושם לה עלילת דברים והוצא עליה שם רע. Learning a Torah p’suk requires the discipline of reviewing that specific פרט as it understands the sugya כלל לשמה. The Chumash addresses how a fool can permanently destroy his good name reputation. Herein the Torah addresses the concept of יראת שמים.
Compare the mussar from בראשית ד:א והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו ותהר ותלד את קין ותאמר קניתי איש את השם. Why did HaShem reject the korban dedicated by Cain? Cain offered a barbeque unto Heaven. His brother, the chosen Cohen first born, dedicated יראת שמים as the k’vanna of his korban. A time oriented commandment, greater than a positive commandment. Upon this distinction did HaShem chose who qualified as the first born son of Adam. Fear of Heaven, it does not compare to the famous reflex impulse commercial: “Gee I could have had a V-8”. דכתיב: וינחם ה’ כי עשה את האדם בארץ ויתעצב אל לבו. Still another example of bruised dignity: ותאמר שרי אל אברם חמסי עליך אנכי נתתי שפחתי בחיקך ותרא כי הרתה ואקל בעיניה ישפט ה’ ביני וביניך. The mitzva of קידושין rests squarely upon a man building the dignity of his house. This applies to both wife and children. Just that simple. No fancy dance’n.
Weigh the kabbalah of שמואל א יד:א-ה. Jonathan developed a tuma midda of undermining the authority of his father. In the end, Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan, his loyalty to David became suspicious following the Av Shalom revolt. Later, Solomon weighed the complexities, & remembered Jonathan’s love for David. He preserved Mephibosheth’s inheritance. This decision highlighted the importance of loyalty over-cast by suspicion, in a times of political anarchy and chaos.
The dynamics between King Shlomo, Mephibosheth, Ziba, (Mephibosheth’s servant), who undermined his master by claiming that Mephibosheth sought to take advantage of David’s troubles and aligned himself with Absalom; and Shimei, (Shlomo’s Talmudic instructor), illustrate the complexities of loyalty, authority, and familial relationships which prophetic mussar frames. It appears to me that our Gemara likewise addresses marital family relationships based upon similar complexities.
This type of in-depth analysis the statute law codes, and Reshonim commentaries simply do not address. Utterly absurd to make a study of the Talmud, divorced from the Primary Sources of the T’NaCH literature. Midrash functions “the” commentary of Talmudic Aggadic sources throughout the Sha’s. This basic fundamental the Yeshiva world today totally ignores.
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דתנן: המפלת ליום מ’ אינה חוששת לולד … וחכ”א אחד בריית הזכר ואחד בריית הנקבה — זה וזה מ”א. גמ. מסתברא טעמא דרבי ישמעאל דקמסייע ליה קראי קמ”ל. דרש רבי שמלאי למה הולד דומה במעי אמו לפנקס שמקופל ומונח ידיו על שתי צדעיו שתי אציליו על ב’ ארכובותיו וב’ עקביו על ב’ עגבוריו וראשו מונח לו בין ברכיו ופיו סתום וטבורו פתוח ואוכל ממה שאמו אוכלת ושותה ממה שאמו שותה
ואינו מוציא רעי שמא יהרוג את אמו
“As we have learned: A woman who gives birth on the fortieth day is not concerned about the fetus… And the sages say, whether it is a male infant or a female infant — both are significant.Gemara: The reasoning of Rabbi Ishmael is evident, as it is supported by verses. Rabbi Shemalai interpreted: Why is the fetus in its mother’s womb compared to a folded notebook with its hands on both of its cheeks, its elbows on both of its knees, and its heels on both of its ankles? Its head is positioned between its knees, its mouth is sealed, and its navel is open. It eats from what its mother eats and drinks from what its mother drinks, and it does not release any waste, for fear that it might harm its mother.”
Clearly in matters of healing, the Talmud authority being Ages past time and Human knowledge have undermined. None the less, the issue raised by the Gemara runs parallel to the Book of Shmuel quoted previously. Learning T’NaCH precedents serve as the basis by which later generations understand the framers of the Talmud.
The second leg of our sugya syllogism: ומפני מה איש פניו למטה ואשה פניה למעלה כלפי האיש? זה ממקום שנברא וזו ממקום שנבראת. ופני מה האיש מקבל פיוס ואין אשה מקבלת פיוס. דכתיב: משלי יד:א–חכמות נשים בנתה ביתה ואולת בידיה תהרסנו. No one force king Shlomo to marry all his foreign wives! He alone bears full responsibility for his avoda zara עון. Its this pre-condition wherein he agreed to cut alliances with other goyim kingdoms, starting with Egypt. The wisdom of that alliance did not prevent king Shishak for conquering Jerusalem!
These two points establish the sh’itta line of learning this sugya. שאלו תלמידיו את רבי דוסתאי ברבי ינאי: מפני מה איש מחזר על אשה ואין אשה מחזרת על אש? משל לאדם שאבד לו אבידה. מי מחזר על מי? בעל אבידה מחזיר על אבידתו
These precedents weigh the dignity and worth of Man and woman as equal – straight from their inception and birth. Each exorcises different skill sets. But life depends equally upon the other. Therefore the idea of child rape as kosher – utterly repugnant. How did the Baali Tosafot address this question?
אי תנא קונה ה”א בע”כ. ואע”ג דתני האיש מקדש דמשמע בע”כ, היינו משום דכבר אשמועינו הכא דבע”כ לא יהא דקתני היבמה נקנית ולא קתני היבם קונה בע”כ. איידי דקתני האשה נקנית תני נמי סיפא, היבמה נקנית דנקנית משמע מדעתה
Therefore the Tosafot disputes the posok halacha made by the Rambam quoted earlier. Obviously this one case does not systematically refute statute halachic law straight across the board as treif. But king Shlomo forced his teacher to live within the borders of Jerusalem, and when he pursued to recover his lost ass, king Shlomo put him to death in accordance with his fathers’ wishes. Its absolutely essential to stand the Talmud upon the foundations of the T’NaCH literature. The g’lut Yeshiva education system today does not learn in this manner. Talmudic scholarship which fails to delve into prophetic mussar makes itself blind to the k’vanna of time oriented Torah commandments. Clearly, it seems to me, that a man pursues קידושין in order to build the dignity of his wife and family.
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