Hyehudi.org

I hope not, because that sounds like the start of a transcendental argument against religion.

The following article from Scientus somewhat defends Cursedianity, but it applies equally to us:

Plotline: The story is set in south-western France around the turn of the twentieth century. A brilliant researcher is meticulously pouring over Leonardo DaVinci’s manuscripts where he decodes subtle clues that lead him back to a little-known web of medieval priests and monks. This group had clearly ventured into areas they weren’t supposed to. The researcher innocently sends news of his discoveries to exactly those people who were most threatened by the new knowledge. To their good fortune, he dies before his final manuscripts are published. The publication of these manuscripts is stopped under mysterious circumstances. The name of the medieval priest who was at the centre of the web would become the “name that dare not be mentioned” for 40 years. His own name, even though he had been considered the welcome new bright light before his discovery, would rarely be mentioned again. The secret of the Parisian doctors would remain hidden…if the researcher had not left behind a courageous daughter. Nothing was going to stop her from letting the world know about her fathers work. Not a global depression. Not a world war. Not thirty years of excuses from a publisher.

No, this isn’t the plot of a pulp fiction novel or a Hollywood blockbuster. Because it isn’t fiction. It actually happened. The researcher’s name was Pierre Duhem. His daughter’s name was Helene. Describing Duhem as “brilliant” is an understatement. It is extremely rare that a single individual can make historically significant contributions to three completely different disciplines, but that is what he did. Pierre Duhem was a world-renowned physicist from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His main interest was in theoretical physics, and his work is still taught in university thermodynamics courses today . Physics wasn’t his only forte, he also became involved in the philosophy of science, and one of his theorems, the Duhem-Quine Theorem, is still discussed by philosophers and economists today. Later in life he turned his attention to the history of science. One can hardly think of a better candidate for a historian of science; extremely adept in both Math and Physics; meticulous in his research; knowledgeable about the culture of science from being a historically significant scientist and aware of the philosophical issues of science from being a historically significant philosopher of science.

Continue reading the rest…

If you answered “Chapters of the Fathers” go to the end of the class. If you offered “Ethics of the Fathers” go even farther. Yet this is what we are told in countless English and Hebrew works on Avos.

Actually, “Pirkei Avos” means “Fundamental (or Principal) Lessons”, which is also how David Baraco translates it in the introduction to his Me’am Lo’ez on Avos.

“Pirkei” as in שונה לו פרקו.

“Avos” as in Shabbos, etc.

Isn’t this supposed to be their forte? If the Mussar ignoramuses don’t know even this much, why are they trusted on anything else?

He’s a Torah scholar… כדתניא וטמא טמא יקרא צריך להודיע צערו לרבים ורבים יבקשו עליו רחמים.

He may have “That Disease”, although we’re waiting for final confirmation.