some quick thoughts

1) I remember when the Mir’s deficit of something like 10 million dollars was considered shocking, proof that the chareidi system doomed institutions to failure under an economically unsustainable model.  So what does YU’s economic problems prove about the economic sustainability of Torah u’Mada and modern orthodoxy? 

2) Yated Ne’eman last week claimed that the kidnapping of the teens in Israel is a punishment from G-d resulting from the attempt to draft yeshiva students.  Maybe Yated has a pipeline directly to G-d and that’s how they know these things, but if not -- if we are just shooting sevaras from the hip -- couldn’t one make exactly the opposite argument?  Hasn’t this episode helped rally support and appreciation for the army and effectively put an end to the protests? 

3) In a similar vein, some people read Korach as a lesson in what happens when you challenge da’as Torah.  R’ Asher Lopatin of YCT points to the Netziv’s interpretation that the 250 people who joined Korach were in fact great Torah leaders with the most sincere motives.  The lesson: “But our loyalty is to the Torah and to the Jewish people, and with love and with awe we must choose these values over the words of any individual, or group, no matter how great or religious they are.” 

 

Some people are bothered by the fact that the text lends itself to competing and opposite interpretations.  I think it would be boring if it were any other way.

4) Heard from a graduation speaker: it says “Zos chukas haTorah” and not “chukas hataharah” or “chukas haparah” because the entire Torah, not just this one parsha, is a chukah.  Speaker’s conclusion: “chukah” = from the root “ch-k-k, to engrave; years of education serve to engrave the Torah on the heart.  My conclusion: after years of education at some institutions the entire Torah remains as much an incomprehensible mystery as when you first started school.