העורך Editor

Although the Rambam writes that in the context of character traits the medium path should be followed, avodas Hashem calls for extremism and lack of compromise.

One rav associated with the Mizrachi asked the Chazon Ish why on the one hand his policy was to attempt to draw the non-religious closer to the way of Torah, by contrast he fought so much against the national-religious Mizrachi party? After all, their followers kept the basics of yiddishkeit, so why quarrel with them?

The Chazon Ish answered as follows: “The non-religious know that they are not following the path of Torah, but their desires prevent them from accepting its yoke. There is therefore a chance to draw them closer to Torah by showing them how sweet it is. The Mizrachi, however, state that they are fundamentally opposed to extremism arguing that they favor the path of peace and so on, and they believe that the path they follow is the path of Torah, whereas in reality it is specifically extremism which prevents compromises. If we were to follow the method advocated by the Mizrachi, the secular population would rule over us and compel us all to give up our religious principles and practices. That is why we fight the Mizrachi. Although not every Jew is capable of being ‘extreme’, those who make a point of fighting against extremism, are responsible for wreaking havoc on klal yisroel.”

• From Rabbi Sternbuch’s English parsha sheet

Some may counter by pointing out examples of “extreme” actions which don’t even fit the Torah. That is to say, things which are not undue stringency, but lazy leniency, especially toward others.

But the point is, the problem is then not enough extremism, correctly understood, instead of “too much”!

On Rabbi Dovid Lichtenstein’s Halacha Headlines here…

with Rabbi Hershel Schachter – Rosh Yeshivah of YU and talmid of Rav Soloveitchik  – 49:01
with Rabbi Lictenstein – Rosh Yeshivah and grandson of Reb Chaim – 1:00:02
with Rabbi Ezra Rodkin – Rosh Yeshivah of Pe’er Hatorah, Rov of Zichron Yaakov Slomo V’Chava, Talmid Muvhak of  Reb Dovid Soloveichik – 1:05:22

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From Ludwig von Mises in his book “Bureaucracy:

1.: The Impracticability of Government All-round Control

Socialism, that is, full government control of all economic activities, is impracticable because a socialist community would lack the indispensable intellectual instrument of economic planning and designing: economic calculation. The very idea of central planning by the state is self-contradictory. A socialist central board of production management will be helpless in the face of the problems to be solved. It will never know whether the projects considered are advantageous or whether their performance would not bring about a waste of the means available. Socialism must result in complete chaos.

The recognition of this truth has for many years been prevented by the taboos of Marxism. One of Marxism’s main contributions to the success of pro-socialist propaganda was to outlaw the study of the economic problems of a socialist commonwealth. Such studies were in the opinion of Karl Marx and his sect the mark of an illusory “utopianism.” “Scientific” socialism, as Marx and Engels called their own brand, must not indulge in such useless investigations. The “scientific” socialists have to satisfy themselves with the insight that socialism is bound to come and that it will transform the earth into a paradise. They must not be so preposterous as to ask how the socialist system will work.

One of the most remarkable facts of the intellectual history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is that this Marxian Verboten was strictly obeyed. The few economists who dared to defy it were disregarded and soon fell into oblivion. Only about twenty-five years ago the spell was broken. The impossibility of economic calculation under socialism was demonstrated in an irrefutable way.

Of course, some stubborn Marxians raised objections. They could not help admitting that the problem of economic calculation was the most serious issue of socialism and that it was a scandal that the socialists in eighty years of fanatical propaganda wasted their time on trifles without divining in what the main problem consisted. But they assured their alarmed partisans that it would be easy to find a satisfactory solution. Indeed, various socialist professors and writers both in Russia and in the Western countries suggested schemes for an economic calculation under socialism. These schemes proved utterly spurious. It was not difficult for the economists to unmask their fallacies and contradictions. The socialists failed completely in their desperate attempts to reject the demonstration that no economic calculation is feasible in any system of socialism.1

It is obvious that a socialist management also would aim at supplying the community with as many and as good commodities as can be produced under the existing conditions of the supply of factors of production and of technological knowledge. A socialist government too would be eager to use the available factors of production for producing those goods that, according to its opinion, are most urgently needed, and to forego the production of those goods which it considers less urgently needed. But the unfeasibility of economic calculation will make it impossible to find out which methods for the production of the goods needed are the most economical ones.

The socialist governments of Russia and Germany are operating in a world the greater part of which still clings to a market economy. They thus are in a position to use for their economic calculation the prices established abroad. Only because they can refer to these prices are they able to calculate, to keep books, and to make plans. It would be quite different if every nation were to adopt socialism. Then there would be no more prices for factors of production and economic calculation would be impossible.2

Read the rest here…

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