Shiurim at AishDas

Queens Judaism Q&A

Queens Judaism Q&A

by R Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer · Published February 20, 2017 · Updated April 1, 2020

Posted 4 years ago by R Yosef Gavriel Bechhofer

A wide-ranging Q&A with a group of members of the Bukharian community. Assorted basic questions on God, Science, History and many other issues in Judaism.

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Publicizing a Chillul Hashem
Micha Berger: Publicizing a Chillul Hashem: [...] I think the case in question more people did than you considered, since RYL was repeating a news report. But that's tangential... I want to complicate the question... Let's say people don't know about the event. But they know about a pattern that the event seems to fit. […]
Yaakov and Lavan
Sholom Simon: Yaakov and Lavan: I found enjoyable an essay over last shabbos on the parsha: R Yitzchak Etshalom, “Shades of White: A Fresh Look at Lavan’s Relationship with Yaakov”, https://thelehrhaus.com/scholarship/shades-of-white-a-fresh-look-at-lavans-relationship-with-yaakov/ […]
ad hayom hazeh
Joseph Kaplan: ad hayom hazeh: RAM suggested two different examples of analyzing possible desired end states: “1) Looking from the perspective of Adam and Chava before they sinned: Was "the desired end state" an entry into Olam Haba the very next day? Or was "the desired end state" that they should err, and then grow […]
ad hayom hazeh
Brent Kaufman: ad hayom hazeh: [...] would have been good. But the end state that we will eventually achieve after thousands of years of work will be better. But that is saying that HKBH's original way was less, or, not the best way; rather, Adam's way was better. That is obviously problematic. […]
free will
Eli Turkel: free will: I have listened to about 10 shiurim of Rav Michael Avraham on free will (Hebrew) which are available on his website He analyzes determinism vs free will from just about every angle from philosophic to chaos theory to quantum mechanics to brain experiments. […]
ad hayom hazeh
Micha Berger: ad hayom hazeh: [...] Which is why I tried to suggest that had Adam not sinned, Hashem's response would have been the best way for for one kind of creature, since Adam did sin, Hashem's response was the best way for our kind of creature. And on the meta-level, the best meta-way was […]
free will
Micha Berger: free will: [...] Yeah, but, that just proves the possitility of "free". I mean the brain is arguably a perfectly designed Chaotic System, with 85-100bn neurons in complicated non-linear feedback loops. Definition: Chaotic System: A system that is unpredictable because […]
free will
Eli Turkel: free will: He went in detail into chaos theory and quantum mechanics and showed that neither has anything to do with free will. Chaos theory only says that the path is so complicated that we can't follow it and small changes can make a big difference However it is completely deterministic […]
free will
Micha Berger: free will: [...] Not if those small changes aren't deterministic. [...] Except that it /has/ to apply to macroscopic *chaotic* systems. Here's a good essay on the topic: https://arxiv.org/abs/1306.0159 Quantum Physics Title: The Ghost in the Quantum Turing Machine Author: Scott Aaronson […]
free will
Eli Turkel: free will: [...] That is meaningless. If one thinks the world is deterministic then the small changes are deterministic. You can't prove free will by assuming small changes are not determined. You are assuming what you want to prove [...] Otoh he shows why libet type experiments and other brain research does not […]