Carl Sagan Didn’t Understand the Division of Labor (let alone forsee AI…)

“We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

– Carl Sagan

Here’s One Way Hashem Could Make ‘Observant’ Jews Care About the Beis Hamikdash Again!

To be clear, He does not consult with me, and I am not claiming prophecy. The point is not to pontificate, but to rekindle holy hope.

It seems as though Jewry is in a very deep slumber, and “כל המקודש מחברו חרב מחברו” — the more pious and more knowledgeable, it seems, the less one can expect a Jew to take interest in anything practical! Must Heaven perform miraculous miracles and blatantly change our hearts?  Must we wait for Moshiach to do everything, simply because it’s not on the public agenda? Crazies with bombs only turn people off even worse, needless to say.

And even then. Must we have a Mikdash run by a bunch of Mesorati/Mizrachi weirdos (at best)?! Picture the Yated attacks: מקדש חניו. I say: No. Here’s how real change can occur in a few short years, no billion-shekel propaganda budget, no heart surgery, no renascent Jewish Underground, no blackmailing all the “transmission belts of influence” at once, and no worldwide devastation.

There’s an explicit Reb Yoelish. Try not to explode until I quote it below. (I’ve earned the right to be a bit cynical after making the case from various angles, repeatedly.)

Step One: America really does take over Aza.

Step  Two: They have lots of fun and profit greatly off it, and break out in Edomite “אמר בלבו מי יורדני ארץ” confidence.

Step Three: Aza is working out for them, their army bases are secure, and the regime is utterly subservient as always, so they decide Jerusalem and Temple Mount are theirs, too. Why not build a few churches up there? Make it the American Vatican, golden and gaudy, a “Biblical McDonald’s”, etc. etc.! If DJ Trump finagles another term, he’ll install a huuuge golden statue of himself in the Kodesh Kodashim on the peak of Trump Mount, as the Erev Rav chief grimaces and smiles wanly. Israeli Jews can also visit the casino (yes, in between the “Multi-Faith” churches is a golden casino) after getting a temp visa through the friendly (processing time: 6-8 weeks) American Embassy. We don’t even get sheitels out of it, since it’s the other kind of Avoda Zara. Wait, did I mention the entire Kosel area is part of the gated compound (excepting the Reform section)? OY VEY.

Step Four: Ooo, Ahh. The Jews FINALLY get mad, Charedi Gedolim included! Derech Hateva.

Step Five: We kick out the infidels and restore the Avodah, just like Chanuka! [We already have the Kodshim Kollels, strive as they might to not decide disputes and dilemmas too much.] Just lighting the Menorah at first, because it’s not as threatening, doesn’t involve as many doubts. Eventually, we restore the Beis Hamikdash itself to “Charediness”, and distort all history to claim we never felt or held any differently, chas veshalom (as post-facto ideological laundering already done with eating bugs, Eruv, Eretz Yisrael, softer chinuch, shatnez, shmittah, living beyond the Green Line, Hebrew, etc. etc.).

That’s what the famous Bach (Nu, Rabbi Yoel Sirkis) says ALREADY HAPENED ONCE:

ואיכא למידק היא גופה קשה למה לא קבעום למשתה ולשמחה כמו בפורים ונראה דבפורים עיקר הגזירה היתה לפי שנהנו מסעודתו ועל כן נגזר עליהם להרוג ולאבד את הגופים שנהנו מאכילה ושתייה של איסור ושמחה ומשתה של איסור וכשעשו תשובה עינו נפשותם וכמ”ש אסתר לך כנוס את כל היהודים ואל תאכלו ואל תשתו שלשת ימים וגו’ ולפיכך קבעום למשתה ויום טוב לזכור עיקר הנס אבל בחנוכה עיקר הגזירה היתה על שהתרשלו בעבודה וע”כ היתה הגזירה לבטל מהם העבודה כדתניא בברייתא שגזר עליהן לבטל התמיד ועוד א”ל מצוה אחת יש בידן אם אתם מבטלין אותן מידם כבר הם אבודין ואיזה זה הדלקת מנורה שכתב בה להעלות נר תמיד כל זמן שמדליקין אותן תמיד הם עומדין כו’ עמדו וטמאו כל השמנים וכשחזרו בתשובה למסור נפשם על העבודה הושיעם ה’ על ידי כהנים עובדי העבודה בבית ה’ ע”כ נעשה הנס גם כן בנרות תחת אשר הערו נפשם למות על קיום העבודה ולפיכך לא קבעום אלא להלל ולהודות שהיא העבודה שבלב ולענין הלכה יראה לע”ד דלא כמהר”מ דמנהג זה שמרבים בסעודה כבר נהגו בו גדולי הדור הקדמונים ומהרש”ל כתב גם כן דברמב”ם משמע דימי שמחה הן וכן כתב המרדכי הארוך עכ”ל ועיין ברמב”ם פרק שלישי הלכה ג’ וז”ל מהר”ש מאוסטרייך דבחנוכה יש לנהוג שמחה ומשתה וכן מוכח קצת ברמב”ם ויש מביאין ראיה מפ”ב דשבת במרדכי והוכיחו קצת מרבינו יואל שפסק בברכת המזון אם לא אמר על הנסים מחזירין אותו ש”מ דשאני משאר הימים ולא סגי בלא פת עכ”ל.

No miracles. Bookmark this! I could really see this happening; history rhymes…

Several Examples of EXPLICIT Halachic Obligations That Are No Longer Observed

537) When Did We All Start Ignoring the “Sealing of the Talmud”?

Sunday, 4 January 2026
This post, by Boruch Clinton, originally appeared on the B’chol D’rachecha site.It’s popularly understood that the completion of the Talmud around 1,500 years ago marked a critical transition in halachic history. From that point on, halachic conclusions found in the Talmud were binding on all Jews everywhere and for all time.

In fact, the Rambam writes as much in the introduction to his משנה תורה:

אבל כל הדברים שבתלמוד הבבלי חייבין כל ישראל ללכת בהם וכופין כל עיר ועיר וכל מדינה ומדינה לנהוג בכל המנהגות שנהגו חכמים שבתלמוד ולגזור גזֵרותם וללכת בתקנותם הואיל וכל אותן הדברים שבתלמוד הסכימו עליהם כל ישראל.

The problem is that, while everyone seems to agree in principle, there are so many exceptions that the rule has kind of gotten lost. I should note that I’m not suggesting that the many innovations in question are necessarily inappropriate. But they are indicators that the Jewish people somehow doesn’t seem to understand the principle of חתימת התלמוד the way they once did.

Here are just a few examples of explicit halachic obligations from Chazal that are no longer observed:

  • The near-universal requirement to stop work and learning for a funeral (see this recent post).
  • The prohibition on adding tefilos without the express permission of kehila members (see this recent post).
  • The requirement to wear tefilin every day – even on chol hamoed.
  • The requirement to teach one’s son a trade (it’s not at all obvious that a high school diploma – or even a college degree – satisfies this requirement).

Here are some more examples from the fourth chapter of דרכי ההוראה by the מהר”ץ חיות.

  • The requirement for close relatives of a mourner to formally join in the mourning period.
  • The requirement to fully cover one’s head (עטיפת הראש) while in mourning.
  • The requirement to overturn beds and benches in a house of mourning.
  • The requirement to avoid doing things in pairs (זוגות) – see Pesachim 111b where some are described as הלכה למשה מסיני.
  • The requirement to avoid uncovered water (משקין שנתגלו)
  • The prohibition to marry a woman whose previous two (or three) husbands had died – see Yevamos 64b (וע’ רמ”א שו”ע אהע”ז סימן ט וגם בית יוסף).
  • A fetus born during the eighth month of pregnancy is not viable (and would therefore be muktza on Shabbos).
  • The requirement to sleep in a succah (weather permitting).
  • The requirement to wash one’s hands before eating wet fruits and vegetables – see Bava Basra 60b.
  • The mitzva d’oraissa to sound horns (חצוצרות) during a time of serious danger.
  • The prohibition of work on chol hamoed or during the week of mourning even in a context of minimal financial loss (דבר האבד). It’s true that דבר האבד is invoked by Chazal in some cases, but those always involve בהול על ממונו וכדומה.

Some of those examples are justified by mainstream poskim using arguments like “nature has changed” (נשתנו הטבעים) or “circumstances have changed”. But has anyone rechecked “nature” and “circumstances” in the five hundred years since the Shulchan Aruch, Rema, and others offered those rationalizations?

And even if it were confirmed that things really have been consistently altered, why would we not use the same logic for widespread prohibitions (like the requirement for avoiding non cholov yisroel milk) instead of insisting that Chazal might have had other reasons for their decrees? How is one change prioritized over a second?

I think it’s reasonable to understand most – if not all – of those rationalizations as efforts to justify (לימודי זכות) changes to observance that occurred outside of the normal halachic process. But the common denominator is that change is common and, if anything, the pace of change is picking up.

Does this mean that, as a community, we’re falling out of sync with “halachic” Torah Judaism?

From Kotzk Blog, here.

The Jewish Leftist Vanguard Have Progressed to Justifying Murdering Jews Worldwide

“Progressives” justify Bondi massacre

Thursday, January 01, 2026

Matt Chun describes himself on his Substack:

Matt Chun is an artist, writer and picture book maker of Chinese and European family, currently dividing his time between Yuin Land and Wurundjeri Land.
Matt is a founding and current co-editor of anti-imperialist print periodical The Sunday Paper. He is also one half of the collaborative art and history project UnMonumental, alongside fellow artist James Tylor. UnMonumental has collaborated with Richard Bell’s Tent Embassy, Art Gallery South Australia, Sydney Living Museums, and Cordite Poetry Review.
Previously, Matt has created work for National Museum Australia, Meanjin Quarterly, Overland Literary Journal, Art Monthly Australasia, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, State Library Victoria, un Magazine, 關渡國際自然藝術季 Guandu International Art Festival, Lowkey and Jaafar Touffar, and مخيم شاتيلا Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp.

Here’s an example of his “artwork:”

Pretty good progressive credentials, right? And proper progressives cannot possibly be antisemitic because they are against all bigotry, right?

Here, this paradigm for wokeness discusses why the Jews in Bondi deserved to be slaughtered in an article titled “We Don’t Mourn Fascists:”

On 14 December, an event hosted by the Zionist Jewish-supremacist organisation Chabad was targeted by shooters on Bondi Beach. While this was immediately and widely reported as an ‘antisemitic attack’ at an ‘innocent Hannukah gathering’, Chabad is in fact a network of centres and institutions which actively, publicly, and extensively helps to facilitate the ongoing Zionist and Euro-American imperialist holocaust of Palestine.
The Chabad of Bondi holds regular events to advance settler-colonisation in Palestine amidst the ongoing extermination of Gaza. …
‘We don’t mourn fascists’ has been a popular refrain from the Australian left. How quickly this slogan is discarded when the idyll of colonial Bondi is ruptured. This reactionary effort to perform respectability and avoid accusations of ‘antisemitism’ is futile. It capitulates to Zionist framing, intentionally wastes our time, feeds institutionalised Islamophobia, and further calcifies a false analysis of ‘antisemitism’.

Chun says that the article was written “in close consultation with members of my extended community, including Indigenous people across three continents and antizionist Jewish comrades,” who include an apparent Jew named Amanda Gelender who has a Substack named “L’Chaim Intifada” who calls every Jew who supports Israel’s existence in any form a “fascist” and routinely compares Jews to Nazis.

Chun has a Jew on his side to prove that his supporting the murder of Jewish senior citizens and a child is perfectly moral.
This is the end result of each “anti-Zionist” trying to outdo the other. Once you pretend that you established that Israel is worse than Nazi Germany, there is nowhere else to go but to start justifying murdering Jews worldwide.

From Elder of Ziyon, here.