The Key To Understanding A Bunch Of Issues. Featuring "Memento"

The key to understanding a a large range of issues in Judaism is understanding that God is completely outside of time. Intellectually, I think most people accept this in some form. You often see it as apologetics for the whole age of the universe debate, "Well, God's outside time, so its not really 5771 years" stuff like that. But I don't think people really, truly believe it. I don't think most of us really have any idea what that really means, sort of accept it as fact, but when it comes down to it, we don't believe it. We do this with a bunch of things. Intellectually, we accept God as having no physical form, but when it comes down to it, when we get to a passuk which says "God said" we envision a big old dude with a white beard speaking in a booming baritone. But that's a discussion for a different post, I suppose.
Anyway, what does it mean that God is outside of time? The movie "Memento" may be a good way to arrive at an answer. The plot of Memento, if you haven't seen it, is about a guy who, due to a brain injury, can not form new memories. All he knows is the guy who injured him killed his wife, their name is John G., and that in order to keep that going he needs to write little notes to himself. Its a great movie, if you havent seen it, see it. So, if, like the main character in "Memento", are unable to form new memories, then you have no concept of "the past". Think about the location you currently find yourself in. How did you get there? Because you walked there from this place, which you took a bus to, and so and so forth. You are currently existing because of a series of previous events. But, if you had no ability to form memories, you have no concept of "past". You are here not because of anything that happened before, because in your mind, there is no "before". There is only "now". All you have is your present circumstances. The movie makes this point quite ingeniously with its unique narrative structure. Most movies work the way our minds do. You start off with some background, and as events occur, it builds upon your previous knowledge. For instance, you see a guy, you find out his name is Bob, we find out he is a warrior who needs to defeat the evil Thomas, we see Bob fighting his way through obstacles, he gets to Thomas, he defeats him, happy ending. Everything that happens is built upon what we already know. But in Memento, the first scene in the movie is the last chronologically. The viewer has no idea whats going on, much like the movie's main character. The movie progress backwards. Each scene chronologically preceded the scene before it. We see the movie as the protagonist experiences it, as a series of presents, one after the other, each time figuring out where you are. Again, its a brilliantly done movie. However, he still has some concept of time, that he does not experience, but accepts. He does not remember his past, but because of the notes he writes to himself believes its there. This can be explained by the assumption (which may or may not be true) that he was not born that way, therefore, he knows there is such a thing as time. But, imagine if he was born with no ability to form memories. Not only would he be unable to perceive such thing as a past, he would be unable to ever accept it to be reality. And because of this, having no concept of past at all, he would definitely be unable to perceive such thing as "future" as well. I mean, think of how irrational "future" is to even sane human beings. I could accept such a thing as a past, as I have memories of it, but to perceive of something I, by definition, have not experienced at all? Even more so for someone who can't perceive a past as well. How would that person perceive life? Completely in the present. It'd be a short life, to him. He'd never have a concept he wasn't about to die.
So that's what it means to be outside of time: To not be within the confines of past and future, but to perceive things all at the same time as part of one present. This is how God views all of history. As happening right now, at the same time. It is us that perceives the world as having a beginning, middle, and endpoint. The creation story is from our perspective, as having happened in the confines of time, God creating on the first, second, third, etc. days. But to God, its one big Creation, the entirety of history being created at one instant, beginning, middle, end. I think this can answer the question that people ask, "If God is perfect, then why didn't he create a perfect world?". The answer, taking this approach, is he did. He created a perfect world, but part of creating a perfect world was that it go through a process of perfection. We, perceiving things in time, are at the point where the world is in the process of being perfected. But it will be. So as God perceives it, the world is perfect. As we perceive it, it's not yet perfect.
Miracles now make sense as well. If God is perfect, and he created nature with perfect wisdom, then why would he need to go back with it and futz it with it every so often? The mistaken assumption of the question was that he finished it, and then set it and forgot it. The world is in a constant state of creation, every second that something exists in this world God is willing it into existence. He can play with the "system", because he never finished creating it.
I also think this is a way to understand the conflict between Divine Omnipotence and Human Free Will. The two sides of the argument, as I see it, are this:
To be continued when I get back to a computer

A Way To Understand Ukimtas

So, oftentimes in Gemara, when its trying to understand a mishna or a braita or some other kind of statement, it'll often make what is called an "Ukimta", which there's no real precise translation in English for, and I'm not even sure that the way I have spelled it english makes any sort of sense, but to give a rough idea of what it is (in case you are unfamiliar with it) the gemara will say that because of some other concern (usually a conflicting statement or a problem in logic) that the statement was only talking about this (usually hilariously outlandish) case. I don't have an actual example off the top of my head, but for instance, if the mishna says that one thing is assur, and the gemara brings another statement which says that thing is patur, the gemara will say that one of them is dealing with a special case of when you use that thing for something else. (Yes, I know, that was extremely illuminating). So a lot of times, you think in your head, a)How could we say that the statement, which was worded so simply was talking about something else entirely, and b) How could we say that this statement only applies in this completely outlandish case that will never, ever happen?

So I think we have to adjust our perception of how exactly gemara works. we tend to think of it as a system in which things are accepted and rejected entirely. One Rabbi puts an idea out, another Rabbi says it doesn't work, and then it's thrown out. Sort of like how it goes in Congress, a bill is written up, its voted on, if it passes, it lives, if it's outvoted, it dies. But Gemara isn't dealing with bills or letters, things that can be torn up and thrown out, the entirety of Gemara is to define concepts, what does this concept mean, when does this concept apply, and so on and so forth. Concepts and ideas cannot cease to exist. When a concept proposed by a Rabbi in the gemara is rejected, it does not cease to be at all. Its application only becomes limited. So it's not really a strictly legal process, because once a legal concept is not law, it no longer exists as a legal concept. Rather, its more a mathematical, algebraic process (Which is weird, because I hate math, but like Gemara). Numbers and variables do not cease to exist, ever. If you have 4x over 2x, and you factor out the 2x, factoring out 2x did not cause it to cease to exist. If you said that 4x/2x=4x/2x, you would be 100% correct. But, we factor out the variables that don't matter for our goal, which would be to find "x", presumably. I dont honestly remember so much math. I think what an Ukimta is, is the Gemara, having been given an equation, ie, a halcha given by a rabbi, trying to determine how all the variables fit exactly. So if one statement gives a halacha of one action being forbidden,(call that x=a), and one saying that it is permitted (x=f), the gemara now attempts to figure out what happened to x in each case to get different results. It then has to say that in x=f, x is really multiplied by some outlandish other variable in order to get the result that it did. And it doesn't matter if its outlandish, if it is the purest distillation of the halacha that has been presented. When you do physics problems (and I say "when you do physics problems", because I failed physics), the conditions are similarly outlandish. "Find out how fast a ball falls, assuming there is no air pressure". There will always be air pressure. That's a totally outlandish scenario. But it is still valuable, to distill in its purest form the effect of the force of gravity on the ball. You can go far as to say that when that Tanna taught that original, now explained halacha in a mishna, he did not even know that it only applied in such a case. But what the gemara does is tell us the purest form of his statement, where there are no other factors at play.
So I think this idea has some repercussions in terms of how to understand what's going on in gemara. All these halachic concepts we know of that decide what the halacha is in each individual case are all variables. Chazaka is one variable, Rov another variable, Pikuach Nefesh another, and so on. What Gemara, and anyone deciding halacha for that matter, does, is attempt to figure out which variables factor into the equation. So let's say my cow gored your cow and killed it. I have a chazaka on my money, but that gets factored out by the fact you have proof that you owe me copensation, and we know HaMotzei MeChavera Alav HaRaaya, if you want to get money from someone you need proof, meaning, that proof, "r" (for "raayah") is greater than "c" ("Chazakah"). Chazakah has now been factored out of the equation. Had the cow gored before? If yes, then we the "Mooad" variable does not get factored out, if it has not, it gets factored out of the final equation. And so on and so forth. Psak Halacha is an algebraic process. You have a question, you sit down, and start eliminating variables that dont factor into the final equation, even though they are still part of the equation, and keep factoring and factoring until you reach a final equation as to what the halacha is.

What this blog Is. And what It is not

The purpose of this blog is for me to write down little thought experiments that I have. I will not be writing exhaustively researched articles with sources and footnotes and such. Not that I really ever do that, I managed to make my way through high school by BSing long opinion pieces into term papers. But anyway, all I hope to accomplish here is to write down little thoughts that come into my head. They may be philosophical musings, they may be an essay on something that pisses me off, or whatever. Sometimes the purpose of my idea will be merely experimental, just throwing out an idea against a wall and seeing where the pieces fly. Its my blog, and I get to decide what goes here. Indicative of this is the title of this blog: The word "Pinkas" means "Notebook", meaning something you write down some thoughts down which are not necessarily for publication but just observations and ideas you write for yourself. And while it is possible somebody digs through your stuff after you've gone and find your observations and decides to publish them (like Rav Kook's notebooks, for instance), that is not your primary concern. The stuff in said notebooks may become the stuff on which you base things you publish, but in your own notebook, you can feel free to experiment, to explore new ideas, figure out new ideas, throw out old ones, and do the dirty work of philosophizing.
So that's what Im doing here. As for who I am, the nature of some of the stuff I publish may perhaps necessitate my anonymousness, but I can say that I am currently 19 years old in Shana Bet in a yeshiva in Israel. As for my philosophy, hopefully my forthcoming articles shed light onto that, but to give some context, I am highly influenced by Kotzker/Peshischa Chassidus, The Mussar Movement, the writings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Raymond Chandler, Blues Music, The Films of Quentin Tarantino, and everything I have ever read, watched, or listened to. So that's it for now.