Rabbi Dr. David Gottlieb - Chanukah: Partnership Between Means and Ends

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The opening of this shiur, in Hidabroot - Torah & Judaism’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

hanukkah is a time when a jew's thoughts turn to greece and not because of the current economic crisis we're celebrating the victory of the maccabees over hellenistic influence that invaded the jewish people and played a great role in the degradation the deterioration of torah observance torah belief torah values our attitude towards greece is defined by a famous verse in the book of genesis the after looking the fs vishkambo holy same let yephes whose descendant is yavan greece let him grow let him develop let him flourish the ishkong holy shame and let him dwell in the tents of shame whose descendant is the jewish people greece is wonderful it's science it's mathematics it's philosophy it's art architecture the culture of greece is wonderful when it dwells in the tents of shame the tents of torah the sense of the jewish people when it's a servant of those higher values then it's wonderful but as in every case of means and ends there's a great danger that the means will forget their purpose and take on the false position of being ends and that leads to tragedy that leads to disaster it's a hallmark of democratic societies that the military is under the control of the civilian government why the military are the experts at war they are the ones who know how to win battles but they don't necessarily know when it's worthwhile to fight or how it's appropriate to fight those are values that go beyond military expertise democracies understand that you can't leave it up to the military to decide when and how to fight that has to be in the hands of those who appreciate the values for which the entire society stands not just those who are masters of the means of fighting there is a perennial debate in academia in the universities between

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1. 0:17hanukkah is a time when a jew's thoughts turn to greece and not because of the…
2. 1:22greece is wonderful it's science it's mathematics it's philosophy it's art architecture the culture of greece…
3. 2:25or how it's appropriate to fight those are values that go beyond military expertise democracies understand…
4. 3:28to what ends for what purpose what is the value of that technology what are we…
5. 4:30life should be terminated medicine has stepped beyond its appropriate role as means and has pretended…
6. 6:04a more developed animal what then of man's hopes man's dreams and man's responsibilities you are…
7. 7:05if you don't have that ultimate picture if you're not confronting that ultimate reality then you…
8. 8:07particle that was the fashion those days every monday or thursday discovered a new particle more…
9. 9:13who do you go to don't you go to someone who's fluent in both a and…
10. 10:18but a partner on our terms a partner in providing us with technology with providers with…

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