Beauty Over Substance?

Yeshar Koach...

but your tie suit and tie was distracting...

:)

"Content" vs. "Presentation"

Would it be fair to say that the Torah opinions giving priority to presentation and beauty represents a messianic state of inherent harmony where it would not be possible to divorce beauty from substance. this too expressed in paroh's dream i.e. a reality to be revealed.

לא הבנתי, הרי יוסף הצדיק הי' לפני מתן תורה. וכבוד הרב אמר בשיעור, שלפני מתן תורה הי' משובח במראה קודם משובח בגופו, דמצוות האבות ריחות היו
?

Thanks Rabbi Jacobson for lifting us up every Jewish holiday to the values of Torah
and for showing us yiddishkait in ethical/moral ways, charging our battery with your uplifting insights and handouts in a beautiful way. My appreciation.

Rabbi Jacobson: My wife watched your shiur on the video and I listened to the mp3 and when we shared ideas, we realized they were too different shiurim. The video is about Yosef and Paroah's dream and the mp3 are 8 insights about chanuka. Do you have the mp3 for the shiur on Paroah's dream??

We fixed it

As usual, My friends and I can not get enough of your wisdom and insight.
When will you be back in Newtown, PA., at Rabbi Weinstein's shule?

Regarding the issue of the Avos keeping the Mitzvos, I mentioned that I remember that there were opinions that understood the posuk otherwise.

The Rashbam explains the words: Ekev asher shama Avraham b'koli... mishmarti, mitzvosei, chukosei, v'torasei as follows.

Shama Avraham b'koli = Akeyda

Mishmarti= Bris milah

Mitzvosei = Bris milah on the eighth day

Chukotsi, v'toratsi = Ethical laws like stealing, adultery, jealousy, justice, and hachnasas orchim.

Based on the above, there is no reason to say that he kept Kol HaTorah etc.

It seems that all of the above items listed by the Rashbam, are actual events that happed to Avraham.

1. Akeyda
2. Bris Milah = His own bris
3. Milah on the Eighth day = his son yitzchok
4. Stealing = when “gazlu avdei Avimelech”
5. Adultery, jealousy = Avimelech and Sarah
6. Justice = War with the Kings / Sedom
7. Hachnasas orchim. = Tent / guests

Questions and Exercises

1. Do you attribute more value to substance or to beauty?
Beauty or substance? Mine! How difficult it is to make a choice, when we love both!
Each substance has indefeasible attribute of beauty of its own. (Just look at the dance of subatomic particles inside of it.) But in modern age with its artificial flavors and substances abuse…, dissonance, disproportion, dysfunctions we are witnessing major divorce between substance and beauty. We are like children of divorced parents and we are pushed to make a choice whom we prefer to live with? Ultimately we gravitate to more secure one. But here is a new problem: they may masquerade each other to win our love, “AFIELD is like AFIELD”… If only we could excrete substance from those husks and peels every time we need to make a choise!
2. How about the culture you live in?
They say its taste is still on the level of husks and peels…
3. What was the difference between the Mitzvos performed before Sinai and after Sinai?
Before Sinai there was only Divine transmission of Aroma of what is good, appealing to sensitive sensors of lofty souls. After Sinai we got clear instructions “WHERE IS SUBSTANCE”, Oil of Mitzvos we have to follow without any excuses of troubles in our sensors.
4. What caused the change in the life and perspective of Joseph?
At the beginning he might be a follower of Pure Aesthetic concept and gravitated to values of Pointless Beauty. Jacob’s education embedded in him from his childhood was dormant until he met Potiphar’s wife… Only when his belief was tested with fetish he realized wisdom he inherited from his father. He discovered eternal value of beauty that derives from ethic.
5. Why the change of order between Pharaoh’s actual dream and his repetition of it?
Joseph’s ambiance, his presence, his new approach for life curves influenced Pharaoh’s comprehension of patterns in his dreams. Can we say that Divine Aroma channeled through Joseph’s mind descended to Pharaoh?
6. Why did the Greeks want the Jew to write on the horn of the ox that they have no part in the G‐d if Israel?
They scared to death of the threatening Judaism brought to their ideology. They hated Jewish awareness of vanity of their fetish.

I have a question.
Many times i heard that the Avot performed all the 613 mitzves. I heard from the R' Amnon Itzhak that an architect can build an edifice using a "plan", and he also can draw a plan seeing the edifice. So the Avot could discover the "plan"(Torah and it's mitzvos) observing the world. But I never knew if they physically performed the mitzves as we know them today, or maybe the sages are just trying to convey a spiritual message. So they performed the mitzvos in a ruchanius level only.

As far as Yoma 28b and Kidushin 82b, I don't know if they were aggados or it is literal.

All the best. an a git gebencht chanike! Chaim.

Baruch HaShem

When I come to your class, I see brilliantly shining Torah.