• Jewish law: lending to overspending friend (opinion)

    From Jos Boersema@21:1/5 to All on Fri Jul 5 17:52:35 2024
    https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1664261/jewish/Loan-to-Someone-Who-Cannot-Repay.htm

    Someone posted a question (see Subject), and it was possible to join
    some kind of discussion on it.

    Suggestion by undersigned ...

    It sounds like you have a different spending habbit than he has, otherwise
    you would not disapprove of his spending. If it truly is the case, that
    despite equality of health and the like, he is (for example) spending a
    lot of money on expensive food leading to a shortfall in money, and you
    are spending more wisely, then you could first offer to try to help him
    spend less, by for example going with him to the store. Show how it's
    all done on a tight budget, show how you do it? If it works, you did
    a great thing for him, better than a loan. If he refuses, he is kindof
    himself to blame, but it is tricky because sometimes people overspend
    because of deeper traumas (example: stress eating). You could also try
    to compute how you would spend the budget he has, and then lend him the
    amount you also would be short. If your friend spends money very unwisely,
    you can give him maybe one small loan to show care but not continue. Ask
    older people if your friend truly is overspending, add anonymity ?

    [Continuing on Usenet]

    It is great that the Jewish people still seem to follow a lot of the
    Torah lending laws. Nevertheless, the cursed prosbul needs to be
    scratched off the books, and the same with the heter iska, and some
    other issues. I guess it shows that "the Torah is in your heart", and so
    the Jewish people really do know how to do things, despite parts of
    their ruling class being corrupt and teaching phony laws of greed and
    hate (such as the prosbul). The prosbul is very convoluted and crazy,
    but the result of it, the aim of it, is that a loan is not nullified in
    the 7th year, and this exact aim and effect is of course completely
    illegal and a crime under the Torah, when it concerns a deserving poor
    Jewish person.

    - Stop with the prosbul. Stop with Hillel the Elder.

    - Stop with the heter iska. Stop with Rambam / Maimonides (sorry).

    - Stop with working on the evening which is attached and part of the 7th
    day, but excluded from being called Shabbos because of absurd day
    counting when the stars come out. It is a *day* of rest, not a half
    day. From sleep in the night, to sleep in the night, a child
    understands it. Working on the 7th day evening pretending it is the
    next day because some ritualistic externality has happened, is nuts,
    and nothing more than a waking day where you shifted around the work
    and rest moments, or at best added more rest than otherwise. Did you
    know that it is now well known and proven without a shadow of a doubt,
    that rest periods for the body are essential to become stronger and
    remain healthy ?

    - Stop avoiding the Jubilee, everyone must have their right to land
    honored. Land does not belong in a market. Selling land for money as a
    permanent posession is explicitly prohibited in the Torah. Stop making
    up phony reasons like "we are not in Israel" or "the tribes are not
    united" or "there is no Sanhedrin". Such excuses are not part of the
    Torah (5 books of Moshe Rabbeinu), or I must have missed it. Any
    excuse the rich and greedy will use to avoid giving back the land to
    those it belongs to. They profit over both ends: keeping the land,
    which is an inmense value for productivity, and on the other hand they
    create an impoverished mass who has nowhere to go, a landless mass of
    people, who will sell their labor to them for very little, to avoid
    death. Stop following the scams of these people, make sure that
    everyone has their right to land honored. It is already bad enough
    that it is even allowed to sell your land into the next 50th year for
    the value of the harvests. I think it is potentially a not so good
    part of the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu. 50 years seems to be too long. 10
    years is plenty already. How about a Jubilee every 7 years, so that
    less time has passed between "sale" and return. Not a whole lifetime,
    which has a tendency to make it permanent, as seems to have happened.

    I realize you don't have the authority to do this. You must keep to
    the 50 year cycle, or perhaps until 'moshiach comes'. I however can
    have my own opinion, not even being Jewish and not sworn to this law,
    neither residing in Eretz Yisroel. I think you need even more Jubilee
    than Moshe Rabbeinu ordered for you, rather than the much less which
    you actually did (breaking that law). To completely go over into my
    opinion: I want a person to be *immediately* able to return to land,
    although that will not necessarily be the same plot anymore. How this
    works I have tried to write down and foresee on my website. I think it
    can be done. The right to free land would be a stronger right, than it
    is currently in the law of Moshe Rabbeinu.

    It is however also true (I guess), that there are benefits and
    downsides to everything. The benefit of a 50 year land sale, is that
    you have to be kind of crazy to even contemplate parting with your
    land like that, because you will probably never see it back. All in
    all though, I am citical of this approach. 50 years is too long for
    people to deal with ... because it is too much of a lifetime. Speaking
    of which, it might all be different if people really lived multiple
    centuries. Then you could oversee 50 years, and realize you should
    never ever do that again, but keep your land, having learned how
    degrading it is to be without it. I think it is smarter, if possible,
    for people to non-stop and always be able to reach their right to
    land, literally within days or on that day even that they need it.
    This is possible in a system of land distribution, where you leave a
    for example 10% open buffer of areas of land (natural resources), free
    for the taking for who has a right. The plot which was rented out,
    then falls open again, and the one who is renting needs to find
    someone new to rent from, or the land will eventually have to fall
    into this open and unused buffer. This is also how you keep rental
    markets in line with the market value. (It has to be tested though,
    testing is knowing.)

    Just my opinion about it, sorry.

    - Destroy the Lamp of Helena, realize you did Sun idolatry at the 2nd
    Temple, which may have destroyed it. Stop pretending that it isn't so,
    stop covering for your own past crimes like that. I have been told
    that it is "reaching" that this is Sun disk idolatry. I suggest you go
    to a high place over a big city, and wait until one of the windows
    reflects the direct sunlight directly into your eye (well, in a place
    where they have decent window glass I guess, straight). It can be
    bright like no star is bright, somewhere in between the Sun itself and
    the moon I guess. Knowing that the people back then even worshiped the
    planets and the Sun, literally bowing down for them thinking they are
    Gods (I guess they just saw moving ligths in the sky), and this bright
    light from the 2nd Temple which is the Sun, it fits the whole theme of
    this idolatry. You just shifted the Sun in between yourself and the
    2nd Temple. Did Moshe Rabbeinu order this device ? No. Stop covering
    for yourselves with make belief. It was idolatry and if it wasn't, it
    was still highly suspect and wrong. The Temple had a light: the
    Menorah, and those where 7 oil lamp lights. Not one light like the Sun
    or a star, but 7. It is what it is. There was no reason to mess with
    it.

    You broke with Hashem doing that, and some of you probably knew it.
    It wasn't the first time Israel fell into idolatry. Wasn't the first
    time the "golden calf" ? I imagine that, given high quality building
    skills which may well have been very good, that this golden calf was
    literally that, and it may also have reflected the sun to a degree
    (although not in the same way as a dedicated reflector could have, due
    to the curbed surfaces). Both are gold, both are held up in the place
    as an idol. It was idolatry.

    As the Tanach itself says: you broke these laws yourself, and caused
    your own exile. All the bad that fell to you, Israel, you caused it
    yourself, just like the other Nations cause all the ills that befall
    them, they all cause it themselves. People just don't care, they lack
    a critical attitude, they don't think it through, everything is about
    themselves which blinds them to the greater truth. All of you, you
    caused all the ills together, and what is to come in terms of war and
    Tyranny, you caused it yourselves. Very extremely few people are not
    to blame.

    You should know that humanity has no right to exist in this way
    anymore, because of the level of technology, but still they want to be
    evil and stupid. It cannot work together. This mess is going to be
    dealt with, or it will very possibly end in hell, a hellish Tyranny,
    which by natural laws might literally never end. People are so
    incredibly stupid, that they will allow themselves to be implanted
    with the horror show the current ruling class is putting on the road,
    and yb the time they realize how stupid they have been, they are
    locked into it, and literally one too many thoughts of rebellion and
    they could be automatically terminated. I don't understand why you are
    so careless.

    If this whole mess of a high technological Tyranny comes about and
    becomes permanent, you don't have to count on me anymore to help you.
    You chose your own hell, now you can live it. You had been shown a way
    forward for this world, wich makes sense and is doable. You don't want
    this world to be happy ? Fine, then live in the hell you created,
    perhaps forever or in such a permanent vice that only the highest
    order other worldly miracles and interventions can still save you.
    Don't count on too much at first though, because you will first have
    to suffer the consequences of your own stupidity, right ? Otherwise
    you don't learn anything. However, you should already have learned.
    This whole world is in over time. The technology is already too far to
    be in the hands of evil people. Total annihilation of humanity is
    always an option I guess. To start from scratch, back in the early
    stone age, with a few thousand survivors who after a few generations
    might believe again that the bright moving dots in the sky are gods,
    or who knows what. Will that be allowed or happen: I don't know, but
    how can you have a world with the periods of a Hitler and a Stalin or
    the other madmen of history (like basically *all the madmen* who ran
    the big Empires in the top, from ancient Egypt to modern USA), but now
    with all the modern technology we have now, and everything which is
    going on top of what we have now literally day by day it increases. It
    is going to a level of all consuming power in the hands of humanity,
    but not in good hands, ultimately in the hands of psychos like the
    people who run various organized crime rings in the ruling class,
    literally the worst of the worst scum is in control of these things on
    a strategic level, while good people ... ?

    Don't let this thing get out of hand to the point where you beg all
    day long for the entire world to be destroyed, so that the pain can
    stop and we simply don't exist anymore.

    *

    I guess the Redemption is basically now started, with the assault
    against the (Ultra) Orthodox. The Orthodox are now going into the
    repression it seems. I wonder if this is the next phase of things,
    where they have to pay for not listening and the guilt has now shifted
    to them, and they get punished first because they are the best, so
    that if they do Teshuvah to the truth, everyone might still be saved a
    lot of pain. If the best are punished first and start doing a whole
    lot better, even meeting the bar they should be meeting, then everyone
    else can be spared the pain, a pain which may have to be much worse
    for them, because they are worse. If you are relatively close to the
    truth already, a smaller punishment might work to get you on the right
    track, and if you then help others get things right, stuff has been
    resolved with a minimum of suffering. If however the next rung also
    fails and fails and keeps failing despite you trying like forever to
    the point of having the right to give up even because of the obstinacy
    and the stupidity and the arrogance and the misbehaivor generally of
    the people whom you try to inspire to be better, then the punishment
    might logically reach them. I don't say that it has to be like this,
    but from a punishment management position (if that even exists), it
    makes sense. Hashem is after all, the God of everyone, and wants
    everyone to be happy, which implies also, everyone to be good, because
    being good is becoming happy (which is also what a lot of people are
    confused about still).

    In any case, I was also personally extremely hurt. I hope you have no
    clue how bad, and will never understand it, because to understand it
    is to have to suffer it. Not just one second either, but non stop for
    decades (!). Fortunately it is mostly over, though I still feel it.
    I can't help but wonder if slowly but surely, the next level will now
    end up being punished: the heroes of the Torah within Israel, which is
    the (Ultra) Orthodox, now being attacked. If they succeed though to
    rectify themselves in time, hopefully everyone else can be spared
    massive suffering. If they can have the Redemption before World War 3
    breaks out, maybe there is a miracle chance of preventing the nuke
    war, although I don't think that will happen, it is always a chance.
    You never know, every chance must be taken.

    Probably more likely though, eventually the (Ultra)Orthodox will do
    Teshuvah for their crimes against the Torah, and turn to the truth to
    the degree necessary. First few, then more, I hope. This may become
    the Redemption. Once they show the example and succeed, it is quite
    possible that World War 3 is going on in a big way, or already behind
    us, with serious suffering for the gentiles all over the world (like
    many of their big cities nuked and generalized chaos, also natural
    problems). Then we still have this "Great day of the Lord" so to say,
    which is even in the native indian visions, called "Purification day"
    by them, which apparently is a level of a natural catastrophy which we
    can basically not comprehend. After that, if that happens (I don't
    know), Israel will hopefully already be Redeemed and all that, doin a
    lot better, but the other Nations might now be undergoing massive
    punishment and destruction, until they also learn to do better,
    basically learning from Israel at that point.

    I hope I am wrong, but on the other hand: you see the obstinacy right
    here in this newsgroup. It is an open news group, anyone can read it.
    It is blatantly obvious the prosbul is a lie. Yet, nobody cares to
    scratch that fraud off the list. This being the case, eventually from
    the perspective of heaven there is no choice but start deploying harsher
    and harsher methods, which eventually include mass death and
    ultimately even near extinction of humanity, or even total extinction
    in the worst case scenario.

    They really don't see it, do they. They underestimate things, they
    underestimate how bad they are. I guess there is no standard, and they
    have a big habbit of comparing themselves to worse, so that they can
    shine that way. It doesn't matter if you have the best raft, if you go
    down in the storm as the last one, you all end up on the bottom one
    way or the other, and then what is the difference between the best and
    the worst. You make it, you meet the bar, the bar of morality
    basically or you don't. It doesn't matter anything if you are better
    than some organized crime gangster. You need to meet the objective
    bar for life using high technology, having overwhelming power on Earth
    and everything with each other, and making a success out of that power
    anyway. That means you care about other people, and even other
    creatures as well.

    It may be enough if a large amount of people are kind of brainless,
    but more or less caring, however there has to be enough people with
    the brains to make it all work correctly. You can all care as much as
    you want for stray cats and impoverished children, giving charity and
    the like, but if nobody takes care of the big issues which keep the
    evil ones down and keep the system working as a whole (such as the
    right to land for all, and a Government which remains under control,
    and no evil wars, and dealing with crime to the degree necessary),
    then it won't work and all these loving but mindless people may end up
    as slaves or even dead.

    So, who is going to fullfill that role, who is going to be a "man
    where there is no man" (to reuse that phrase) ? You Israel will be
    that man, you will be the Lamp to the Nations. You did it before, and
    you will do it again. Once again, just as the Torah says, you will be
    chosen. You are the chosen ones, like it or not. You will succeed, and
    then there will be peace, forever, and great joy, especially for you,
    because in the end, you did so much and persevered through so much,
    and your light might finally shine over all the world, and they might
    finally see and understand it.

    Also, the Nations may finally see and understand their own darkness,
    the evil of their wars, and how extreme it all becomes, how hopeless
    and the wrong way. Once they see that by experience, they might
    finally come to understand that there is only one way, and that is to
    be good, and that all the happiness and life is there and nowhere
    else. Thus you will come up as the first born Nation, not to rule much
    less to exploit, but to be a living example they want to learn from,
    so that they too can live, be good, be free and become happy in life.

    Israel persevered in some way to the present, this is a major
    achievement for the Torah. Other Nations already went over the top
    many times, changed cultures, names, everything. Israel is still
    there, like a small diamond in a washing machine full of big rocks.
    The big rocks eventually become dust, but there shines a diamond like
    never before: it is Israel, the Lamp to the Nations, the hope and
    peace of the world. Next year in Yerushalayim I suppose, Hashem
    willing.

    Otherwise: I don't know either anymore. Perhaps it is something else
    you need. I see some errors with you, suggest you correct them. You
    refused. Correcting them might not be everything. Maybe my program
    (website) is not good, although I think it is very good of course. It
    is up to you. I think the main thing you need to do, is to care. You
    have to figure it out. You need to stop with this mind block, this
    non-think, because that is what I think you are doing. You just don't
    think about it, but blindly accept too much. Go along to get along,
    washing out the Torah, replacing it with somewhat hollow rituals. "The
    Torah, oh, that is about blessing your children to be like so and so."
    Is that really the first thing ? Caring for other people, does that
    mean conducting blessing rituals, is that the main thing ? It sounds
    like an idolatry religion, belief in magic, the usual craziness on
    Earth. Do those blessings fill stomachs, deal with organized crime in
    the ruling class, liberate slaves, generate truth in courts, prevent
    lies from being spread ? Does it initiate the Jubilee on land ?
    Probably not.

    What was the first thing Abraham did and was famous for ? I thought it
    was being hospitable ?

    What was one of the first things Moshe Rabbeinu did ? I thought it
    was, killing those abusive guards in Egypt. Right to the point, he
    dealt with a crime himself. Then he took Israel out of the 'house of
    slavery' with great miracles, and gave Israel (and the world) a law
    which is probably still the greatest law on Earth, and still needs to
    be understood and done.

    Tying boxes to your forehead ? Is that what they where famous for ?
    Making gestures over a cup of water, before they drink it, was that
    their greatness ? (Well, at least Moshe Rabbeinu did something like
    that once, I guess.)

    What happened first, when Jehoshua ben Nun came to the head and they
    took the land ? While it is no doubt true that they gave homage to
    their God, one of the biggest things that they did was to measure the
    whole land, and divide it by family and tribe, so that all had their
    land for free. That is a big thing. The land is everything. Everything
    moves on land, comes from the land, returns to the land. What is left
    of our lives, without the Earth ? Basically, nothing.

    Everything is about doing real things for real people, dealing
    correctly with the big questions such as who owns the land (everyone
    should), and then eventually there is also some "religious" activity.
    The Shabbos is a "day of rest" principly, rather than a day of frantic
    rituals and a circus.

    I think: less empty rituals, more real action. Also, as I suggested
    for you also, you can run a complete Revolution if you want to based
    on the program I have thought about for a long time working out the
    details (about 15 years), and that could deal with the bigger
    questions such as the economy and the State. It probably doesn't hurt
    if you tie a box to your head, but I don't think it is going to do much,
    sorry. Beyond all this: I don't know anymore, either. All I know that
    I plan to step out of the way, because this is your party and your
    life, individual by individual. If you ask me to come to a stand, I
    will not. It's over with this Pyramid thing, as far as I am concerned.
    We are now all standing on the ground, and talk to each other, one by
    one, and that should be enough.

    Well ok, elect a King, you go do that, elect your King from the house
    of David, but a King *under* the law, perhaps as I described it for
    you if you want, but basically a King without the power of a King. A
    King of words, not a King of power. A King who has a conversation with
    you. Make sure to elect someone decent, and hopefully it will work
    out. Your God apparently decided this for you, therefore it must now
    happen.

    I understand that you are hesitant to do anything. Perhaps it will be
    heaven itself whose patience with you will run out, and they will
    "kick you in the butt" if they aren't already, to make sure you don't
    miss out on your own life for basically no reason.

    The whole program is also meant to be done in such a fashion, that if
    you have this 'moshiach' come about which you seem to want (but do you
    really, or you just want King like the Nations and forgot that it is all
    about the Torah, the truth and the peace), that all you would
    basically have been doing based on the program I suggest for you, is
    *more* Torah, and also things which are in the direction of the Torah,
    or which do not conflict with the Torah and which seems moral, and so
    on. This way, this dude you seem to want, will also not be upset with
    you, and if you so please you can let that person inspire you in
    whatever direction that will be (or will that be the King you elect).

    I get your hesitation, but you already hesitate for 2 thousand years
    and more with the Torah. When are you going to stop with your tarrying ?
    Never apparently, and so you are forcing heaven to force the issue, it
    seems. Are you sure you want to go there, because that is what seems
    to be happening right now, with the Orthodox forced into the military
    and all this drama now developing. Or ... are most of you really
    gentiles, and you are always merely spectators and never really do
    anything serious. Moshe Rabbeinu, he stood up, he acted, but where are
    you.

    "Oh oh he is not nice to us, how horrible he must be a bad person."

    The thoughts of a dog, not understanding a word. I write myself
    combletely nuts, do you think I would do that if I didn't care for
    you ?! SIGH (lol) Do you even know me in person ? Nope. Do I have a
    little bit the right to be upset, when good laws are broken and
    possibly the most evil war in human history is about to begin, or
    worse, another round of punishment against the Jewish people, because
    you do not return to your Torah and save yourselves in time ? Should
    I be happy with all this ? Should I be congratulating you with
    everything that is happening and seems to be happening soon ? Was
    your own God always happy with you for that matter, did Moshe
    Rabbeinu never say a harsh but true word about you, yet everything
    they do is for you ?

    Oy oy oy Israel .... when, when do you stop tarrying.

    [I guess this is what happens if there is nobody there to kick your ass
    when you don't stop ranting like this, sorry. Have a guten Shabbos.]
    --
    Economic & political ideology, worked out into Constitutional models,
    with a multi-facetted implementation plan. http://market.socialism.nl

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