Rambam: There Is a Mitzvah to Study Hebrew GRAMMAR!

Rambam, Peirush Hamishna to Avos 2:1:

מבואר הוא שדרך הישרה היא הפעולות הטובות אשר בארנו בפרק הרביעי והם מהמעלות הממוצעות מפני שבהם יקנה האדם לנפשו תכונה חשובה ויהיה מנהגו טוב עם בני אדם והוא אמרו תפארת לעושה ותפארת לו מן האדם:

אח”כ אמר שצריך ליזהר במצוה שיחשב בה שהיא קלה כשמחת הרגל ולמידת לשון הקדש כמצוה שהתבאר לך חומרתה שהיא גדולה כמילה וציצית ושחיטת הפסח:

Avigdor Peretz: The ‘State’ Is a FICTION!

I regard the “State” or “Establishment” as the Emperor’s New Clothes. Everybody believes it has some essence, but it exists only in common belief. What is real are the people and relationships hiding behind a facade. I guess it’s sometimes used as a mechanism to regulate and/or dictate those relationships. (Don’t you love regulation…?)

It would be interesting to write up a case example of how this works, contrasting the human (mis)perception with human reality.
One example that comes to mind:
Someone gets fined for some senseless infraction (I was once fined for putting up a small advertisement on a street fixture in Geula, among hundreds of other advertisements put up without permits, which sheer bureaucracy would probably prevent me from getting anyways). The first reaction might be: What a stupid country! What has the stupid State done to me?!
But a more careful analysis would reveal it’s actually a human being, possibly arbitrarily, giving the ticket (in the name of “The State”); a person hired by another person, also working for “The State”, who was hired, voted in, or appointed, in turn, by another apparatchik of “The State” in order to enforce regulations passed by “The State”, which is to say, by a handful of people entrusted by “The State” to create such regulations, for the benefit of the residents of “The State” as they see it, and these “entrusted” individuals may have gotten this power very arbitrarily, through ignorant “mob rule”, political wheeling-dealing, etc… So where exactly is “The State” that has entrusted all these people with their responsibilities?!
Bottom line: A person, or group of people, have dictated a mechanism for regulating relationships (for example, democracy), and then imposed it on us all.
We might as well choose a pretense-less, God-imposed Davidic monarchy…

‘Avodah’ Means Animal Sacrifice, NOT Mere Prayer

Says Rabbi Avigdor Miller.

Here’s an excerpt:

… And that’s why the avodas hakorbanos is one of the pillars that support the world:על שלשה דברים העולם עומד – “On three things the world stands” (Avos 1:2), and one of them is the avodah. You know, some people say that avodah means korbanos also; yes, of course, that too. They won’t deny that. But the true avodah, they’ll tell you, is tefillah. But that is wrong. The avodah that is meant here, the pillar of the world – is korbanos, animal sacrifice; only that today, because we have no choice, so tefillah stands in place of korbanos (Berachos 26b).
And that’s why we’re not satisfied today with what we have because we want the real thing. We say ברוך אתה השם שומע תפלה – “Yes, Hashem, You listen to our tefillos; I know that you’re listening when I speak to You.” And that avodah she’bileiv is so important. And yet, what’s the next thing we say right away? רצה השם אלוקינו בעמך ישראל והשב את העבודה – “Please return to us the avodah of korbanos.” We’re not satisfied with tefillah, with the avodah of the heart. We want the real thing; we’re asking for the avodas hakorbanos, for the opportunity to bring up animals onto the fire of the mizbei’ach. And therefore when you finish shemonah esrei, you feel like a person who ate a meal without anything solid, you’re not full yet. And so you say יהי רצון מלפניך השם אלוקינו שיבנה בית המקדש – Hashem, give us back the avodah once more. Then we’ll be serving You for real! …

נתנה ראש ונשובה מצרימה

ראיתי עוד מודעה מהסוג שמקפיץ אותי כל פעם מחדש – “מכירה – חוזרים לחו”ל”!
מה זה “חוזרים”? מילא היו כותבים “עוברים לחו”ל”, לכסות על זה שבעצם מוקעים ומוקאים מארצנו הקדושה, אבל “חוזרים”? כאילו אנחנו משם במקור!
וימאסו בארץ חמדה…