Saturday, September 04, 2004

I really don't like when people cite pesukim to prove the correctness of their political views. This is a nasty religious-Zionist Israeli trait common to starry-eyed Kookniks and namby-pamby Meimadniks. Derush is something else, though. The whole point of derush is to illustrate a point -- moral, legal, political, etc. -- not to prove it. In the context of derush, selective citation and interpretation of pesukim is tendentious but not dishonest.

Having apologized in advance, I can't resist pointing out the insightful commentary of the Netziv to the tochekhah. The Netziv's approach is naturalistic; he sees the whole tochekhah as a realistic chronicle of progressive stages of economic, psychological and social dissolution. I cite one example; do with it what you will.

Yakkha Hashem be-shigaon u-be-ivaron u-ve-timhon levav
God will afflict you with madness, blindness and dullness

Netziv's commentary:
Madness -- the mental defect of not contemplating self-defense against the nations
Blindness -- the few who are not mentally deficient will be oblivious to the impending evil
Dullness -- the fraction who see and understand the [impending] evil will be apathetic like stone unable to act

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boooo! Hissss!
Save it for the editorial pages.
DOPE

5:43 AM  

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