A Sum Greater Than Its Parts

Note that both English and Russian depart grammatically from their conventional forms of pluralizing nouns when it comes to human beings/ people.

English: Person -- People  (as opposed to Persons).

Russian: человек -- люли (as opposed to человекы)

I would suggest it stems from a subconscious recognition as to the transformative nature of an individual's integration in to a ציבור / collective.

איפה כתוב?

Along the lines of the Hebrew/Aramaic nuance of לפי vs אליבא and the Yerushalmi/Bavli contrast of תא חזי vs תא שמע I realized a similar difference when wanting to challenge the veracity of a statement.

In english we'll say "Who says?" or "Where does it say that?" but in hebrew we say איפה כתוב?

One for כתב and one for על פה...

Different 'World' Views

First see what we said here:

Got an email:


1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate (more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (just to be bold)
3. Add 5
4. Multiply it by 50 -- I'll wait while you get the calculator
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1760 ..
If you haven't, add 1759..
6... Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.
You should have a three digit number
The first digit of this was your original number
(i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).
The next two numbers are YOUR AGE! (Oh YES, it is!!!!!)
THIS IS THE ONLY YEAR (2010) IT WILL EVER WORK.


Why this works can easily be seen when formulated algebraically:

pick a number , x, between 1 and 9
double it.. add 5.. then multiply it by 50 ---- (2x+5) * 50
which simplified becomes
100x + 250
they tell you to add 1760 (this is done so when added with 250 it becomes the current year of 2010)
100x + 250 +1760 == simplified becomes >>
100x + 2010
if you subtract the year you were born from 2010 you by definition will get your age in numbers... (those are the last 2 digits)
and the first digit will be whatever x was which is what you picked in the beginning.

Now my realization is this: the "world" viewpoint from which you view this process is the difference between the miraculous and the self-evident, the chaotic/probabilistic vs the rational deterministic.

Follow the exercise by plugging in for 'x' (the number of times you want to eat chocolate) makes it essentially humanly impossible to then, in the course of the exercise, realize the interrelationship of the various operations and numbers and to "see" how essentially you're just subtracting the birth year from the current year and adding an extra third digit which you started with. You can only see the inescapable logic and self-evidence by viewing it from a "higher world" of algebra.

הויה וחיים / Past Perfect vs. Past Perfect Continuous

Came to a startling realization. English grammar itself reflects the subtle distinction between simple actions of Life (חיים) and existential realities (הויה) .

Ron said he had done it already. אמר שעשה אותו כבר

Just points out the mundane fact that it occured.

Ron said he had been doing it for hours. אמר שהוא כבר היה עושה אותו לשעות

He was in an existential state of doing it.....

I equally could have pointed out from the Present Simple and Present Continuous, just happened to realize it in the Past.

Also see Nedarim 61b
 עד הקציר עד הבציר עד המסיק אינו אסור אלא עד שיגיע זה הכלל כל שזמנו קבוע ואמר עד שיגיע אסור עד שיגיע אמר עד שיהא אסור עד שיצא וכל שאין זמנו קבוע בין אמר עד שיהא בין אמר עד שיגיע אינו אסור אלא עד שיגיע.

שותה בעציצו

Taken from Wikipedia - "Free Love"

After the October Revolution in Russia, Alexandra Kollontai became the most prominent woman in the Soviet administration. Kollontai was also a champion of free love.

In what may be an apocryphal conversation, she defended free love to Lenin, saying "Love should be free, like drinking water from a glass."

Lenin is supposed to have replied, "but who wants to drink from a soiled glass?

[עי' זוהר אמור דף צ ע"א אלא אתתא איהי כוס דברכה טעמו פגמו]

Truth vs Life

I smile when I’m angry.

I cheat and I lie.
I do what I have to do
To get by.
But I know what is wrong,
And I know what is right.
And I’d die for the truth
In My Secret Life.

(Leonard Cohen, In My Secret Life)

א"ר יוחנן משום ר"ש בן יהוצדק נימנו וגמרו בעליית בית נתזה בלוד כל עבירות שבתורה אם אומרין לאדם עבור ואל תהרג יעבור ואל יהרג חוץ מע"ז גילוי עריות וכו

כי אתא רב דימי א"ר יוחנן לא שנו אלא שלא בשעת שמד אבל בשעת שמד אפי' מצוה קלה יהרג ואל יעבור ... מאי מצוה קלה אמר רבא בר רב יצחק אמר רב אפילו לשנויי ערקתא דמסאנא

Strange paradox the Gemara is presenting: If you need to eat pig in order to live then "do what you've got to do" but the moment you're being forced to eat pig (or tie your shoes) as an expression of a statement of Existential Truth, you must die for it. You must die rather than give up your faith (אמונה) in that which is Truth (אמת) even though, in action, you may have to live by that which is False.

Part of a larger thought I had about הויה vs חיים or as I like to capture it as the paradox in Dan Akroyd's selling a $12,000 Swiss watch in Harlem for $50 (in the movie Trading Places) because "In Harlem it's worth $50." This Gm' is essentially saying you're permitted to sell that watch for $50 so that you can survive but only so long that you're allowed to maintain your position/belief that in Truth the watch is really worth $12k. The moment the world is demanding of you to not only live as though the watch is $50 but also maintain existentially that's it's only $50 is the moment you have to give up your life.

וצדיק באמונתו יחיה

I smile when I’m angry.
I cheat and I lie.

I do what I have to do
To get by.
But I know what is wrong,
And I know what is right.
And I’d die for the truth
In My Secret Life.


[Additionally can be seen then as the paradox between normative v. empirical or מצוי נגד רצוי]

Versions of The Truth

Harry: I have never lied to you. I have always told you some version of the truth.

Erica Barry: The truth doesn't have versions, okay?

(Quote from the movie "Somethings Got To Give")

The more I think about it the more I've realized that Harry is actually right. There are "versions of Truth"; not because there is no one objective set of Truth out there in the world [I believe that there is i.e. Torah sh'Bichtav] but because of the deficiencies on the side of the "receiver" the "Truth" must sometimes be "distorted" so as to conform appropriately to the receiver. Or in other words, telling over the Pure Truth to someone "who can't handle the Truth" is not Truth at all.

Take the issue of גר הבא על אמו for example. The Torah defines for us the pure existential Truth of the matter-- גר שנתגייר כקטן שנולד דמי , therefore Truth sees no ערוה in the relationship whatsoever. But we, as flesh and blood humans have difficulty making that distinction, we're so accustomed at looking through pure physical lenses that we see as nothing less than incest. Hence the רבנן come and prohibit it. Which one is therefore "the Real Truth"? Both are, depending on what dimension you're coming from. Existentially, objectively גר הבא על אמו is מותר. Practically, in reality, in practice it's forbidden because the world cannot handle that Truth...

This is also לענ"ד the deeper understanding in דן דין אמת לאמתו beyond it's being an objective דין אמת it also is subjectively, in it's application, לאמתו.

Harry: I have never lied to you. I have always told you some version of the truth.

[P.S. Afterwards I saw that the של"ה in his comments on פרשת בראשית says a very similar thing. ברוך שכוונתי ]